Zakal: Stories From Within the Institute
by machievelli
Summary: Set on Torch, a deadly danger is loose in the Galaxy, and only Ruth Winton and her Institute can stop it. co-written by Lord Grise, unless noted, chapters are by myself. Rating for violence and some descriptions.
1. Chapter 1

Zakal: Stories From Within the Institute

**Interlude**

There were times when Lori Pettigrew, Captain of SS _Boojum_ hated her creator. For most of humanity, it would be a diatribe against the Gods, but for her, like far too many, it was some faceless bastard who worked for Manpower. Her designation had been C-21a/51-7/5-9. She had been designed as a sex slave, and the designation gave her the sloe-eyed look of a Eurasian female, but what people would call 'baby-faced'. Even when she reached adulthood, she looked like a very young girl.

A lot of perverts liked that a lot.

At 45 T-years old, she still looked like a pre-prolong teen, and every damn time she entered a bar, even one she had been to before, she was carded. Honestly, if they caught that bastard, she'd do everything she could to be the one who spaced him; and she'd do it properly, putting him in a skin suit with a tank of air, and send his fat ass on a Dutchman into a star!

She slapped the ID card and the cash card down on the bar, and glared at the barkeep. "Whiskey sour." He examined the ID as if she was making a large bank withdrawal, delivered the drink, and slid her card for payment. She took the drink to a booth. She wondered about who had named this Sector and planet, and even more the one who had named the station. Unless you liked ancient books or movies about serial killers, why would you name a planet Hannibal, and name the primary station Lector? She had been trolling here for over a week now, and was starting to get frustrated. Maybe the information was-

A man slid into the booth beside her. The first thing she felt was the barrel of a pulser. She sipped, looking down. Yep, Nambu-Beretta 1 mm. One of the cheap ones. "Mr Simonov is not happy with you, Captain."

She looked at the weapon again, then at the troll who held it. "I am starting to get a bit agro myself. I am sure he knows he could just use a com channel and ask to talk with me. This," she motioned toward the gun, "frankly, is about as subtle as dropping a KEW on someone's head."

"He wants his cut, and your source for Beauty."

"What I have aboard is all the Beauty I have. There is no more. And as for his 'cut', when he gets off his ass and does the work, he gets a cut. End of discussion."

He pushed the muzzle hard into her side. "He don't take no for an answer. We've got your watch crew under guard. We got guys watching the other four who are wandering the station. Once he talks to you, and he gets what he wants, you can go where you want."

Her head turned slowly, and her eyes were cold. "I know the drill, you moron. Your boss had best hope no one was stupid enough to rough up Sasha. Unlike Nika, she holds a grudge."

The guy gave her an evil grin. "Sasha the blonde twist? She told Marko that she was going to rip off his arm and beat him over the head with the wet end after he slapped her."

She sighed. "Then we best go." She drained the drink, setting the glass down. "Before she carries out her threat."

**Boojum**

"That's a stupid name." The guy said. He was walking close enough to keep the gun screwed into her ribs.

"It's from an ancient poem named the Hunting of the Snark by a man named Lewis Carrol." She replied, going up to the docking tube. "If your boss had a brain, it would worry him." She paused. "Do you go first, or do I?"

"Marko is covering the inner end with a flechette gun. I come through first, he thinks it's open season on the blond bitch."

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Tell me he didn't call her that." At his grinning nod she sighed. "And you probably stood behind him when he did with that same grin. The only thing that pisses her off more is the C word, or the Q word." She caught the bar and dived into the boarding tube. She looked at the idiot she dubbed Tweedledum on the inside with a folding stock, short barreled flechette gun. He looked like he might have enough brain to actually operate the weapon, though reading a book might strain what little brains he had. She caught the inner bar, flipped herself onto the deck with a dancer's grace, and stood aside as Tweedle dumber followed.

Once he had his feet on the deck, he motioned, and Lori followed Tweedledum. They walked to the mess deck, where the others were. Henry was sitting beside Nika. To the eye they looked like a middle aged couple. The woman's hair had been dyed red with what might be called salt, though knowing her, it was more Thai pepper cut with white pepper. Sasha Obraskaya, an ash blond with sharp Slavic features sat with her back to the bulkhead, her cheek badly bruised. She was going to have a shiner, and someone was going to pay for that.

There were six other men standing in the compartment, and except for one, they were obviously more hired muscle. She scanned them first; a threat appraisal. Two of them not only looked competent, they even looked dangerous. The rest? She had seen pets that were more dangerous. She looked at Nika, who nodded, though her eyes were on the two Lori had spotted. _Good_.

The last man was who they had come after. Arthur Simonov, head of organized crime in the Hannibal Sector. Letting the underworld think she had Beauty aboard pretty much guaranteed he'd come out to grab it.

"Join us, Captain." He motioned like the lord of the manor to some flunkey. It was her ship, but he thought he was in charge. "As soon as the rest of your people are corralled, we can begin." He paused as his wristcom buzzed. "Just a text. I'll have to instruct that moron.. So, they're in my hands, we can begin."

She walked across the compartment, catching Sasha's eye. The thugs were standing two to his left (both Tweedles). She wasn't worried, none of the emergency signals had popped, and if they weren't dead, her people were already hard at work. She looked at the table beside Sasha. The cutlery drawer had been emptied, and there was a polishing cloth. _Good_. She turned, leaning her bottom primly against the table. "Begin what?"

He laughed, an avuncular sound that didn't fit his piggy eyes, waving to his men who... _put their guns away_. Lori's eyes widened just a touch. To anyone who know her, it would have been the equivalent of a gasp of shock. "Why incorporating you into my organization, of course." He waved at the ship. "You know how valuable a dispatch boat, even five decades old is to me? Not having to depend on some Solarian boat's schedule? Enough private cargo space for small, valuable items? This ship is very valuable, and as her crew I am offering you all a place in my organization."

She pretended to consider. Actually she was hoping Darius and Conner were right about how bad they thought the opposition were. She reached a count of twenty before looking up. His smile was gone. "Frankly I don't see an upside. We're a small private enterprise team, and make a good living delivering small cargoes through half half of the League from Maya Sector to Earth itself. You honestly don't have enough money to hire us long term. Except for Megacorps or governments, no one does."

"Oh I wasn't thinking of offering money. I was offering something much more... important."

"Is that so?" She asked artlessly. "And what would that be?"

"The welfare of your crew." He replied. "All you have to do is first, agree to work solely for me, and give me one more thing. The distributor who supplies you with Beauty." He gave her a flash of a smile, but she remembered that only humans considered baring your teeth as amusement. "Otherwise, your crew will enter the supply side of the operation."

Her eyes narrowed. "I am not quite sure I understand."

"I think you do. You see, I know how Beauty is made."

_Just as we were told._ She thought. "I see. First, there is no distributor. What we have aboard is all there is, as I told Tweedledum over there." She jerked her thumb at the man. "And as for working for you, none of us will."

His eyes grew cold. "You've heard the term 'Penalties and fines'?" She gave a short nod. "If you don't have a distributor to give me, and you refuse to work for me, then I will have to use you as an example for your crew. Once they see what happens to you, perhaps they will negotiate for their own lives."

"Perhaps." She turned around, both hands still where the men could see them. "But there is a flaw in your logic."

"Oh? And how is that?"

"It assumes I am just going to go willingly." Then she spun.

**Slaughterhouse**

A thug's life is simple. Loom over your target, threaten to beat, cut or shoot them, and if all else fails, beat, cut or shoot them.

This works about 95% of the time, because they are dealing with the average citizen who is worried about themselves or their loved ones. Sometimes it is just easier to hand off your protection money instead of putting up with power outages, personal injuries, or fires. But that leaves 5% who are a bit harder to deal with.

The largest portion of the remainder are other thugs, or the police. whereas a regular thug is just close-lipped, a policeman is just a calmer more inquisitive thug; just as a German shepherd is a wolf that works for his food. Of course you can't always use the same methods with them. As much as you might want to hit them, unless you kill them, the other thug knows what goes around comes around. And if the bosses don't agree, it goes to gang wars. But as much as gang wars are great for media share, all it is really is a family argument with weapons. Also as much as the families will mourn the losses, the police will just clean up the mess and chortle as long as innocents are not hurt.

The police are harder to deal with. If a gang lord said 'you and what army?' to a policeman, the cop would just jerk a thumb over his shoulder at the milita, national guard or actual military who not only have you outnumbered, but outgunned as well.

The next largest is the brave and stupid, and the two terms are not mutually incompatible. A deer or elk can confound a wolf pack by confronting them and not running. The poor predators get confused and wander away. Occasionally the white mouse you bring home to feed to a boa constrictor will sometimes kill the snake, even a house or field mouse will chase the cat away. It is possible, and even has happened. But in the great gambling house of the universe, you have to remember that in the long run, the house always wins. Besides, if you look a thug in the eye and say, 'pull the trigger', a lot of times the thug just obeys the instruction.

The smallest group by far are those that not only resist, but do so efficiently There is a reason professional soldiers fresh from combat don't often get mugged. Frankly after weeks or months or even years of people actively trying to kill you, your senses expand beyond what anyone would believe and you're trained to act, not react.

The odds at the moment were two to one, and three of them were bints. But Simonov's men were quite honestly fighting out of their league. As Captain Pettigrew always said, it was Darwin Awards time. And there is no second place. Her right hand snatched up a barbeque fork, and she threw it at the man to the right of Simonov as she charged the bossman himself. She didn't need to see if it hit, she'd spent three decades learning to throw things from pens to bowie knives, and if she could see it, she could hit it. It was only five meters from the table to the bulkhead, and Simonov had only begun to stand, his right hand diving for his coat for his own gun when her snap kick hit and broke his forearm.

Nika had a more... direct method. As Lori had turned to face the table, she had also turned, and as Henry ducked, she stood, casually ripping the other tabletop from the 6mm bolts that attached it to the posts from the deck. While she looked middle aged, meaning in her nineties thanks to prolong, she was the same age as the Captain, and had retired from the Solarian Marines as a Gunner's Mate; the highest rank someone from the Shell could reach. Then she stood to her full height, and being from Ndebele that was impressive. She only looked shorter because she tended to hunch over when on ops, and her hair, which had been straightened from the original tight curls just looked wavy. So to the unknowing she looked like a tall fat woman.

But there was less fat on her than the average Olympic class athlete. So the fifty kilo tabletop was nothing to her as she spun herself, throwing it toward the opposite bulkhead like a flat square frisbee. The two she had marked as her targets had actually gotten their guns out when the blade of the table smashed into them and the man beside them. He was the shortest of the three, and it smashed his head into the bulkhead when it crushed the other two against the titanium alloy. Like a hexapuma she was there before they could aim, and her hands grabbed their heads, slamming them together hard enough to shatter their skulls.

Henry stood as the table passed bare centimeters over his head, and charged his man. Henry Duchamp was smaller and wiry. In fact when he and Nika went around pretending to be an old married couple, it was like the stereotypical pussy-whipped guy with the huge wife. He was actually as old as he looked, but in his eighties, he had what a lot of people didn't have; black belts in both the Coup and _Neue-Stil Handgemenge_. He struck using the the Hand Hammer, and spun to his right to help the others.

Sasha had exploded out of her chair, and Tweedle dumber was sliding down the bulkhead, a red streak from where his skull had been crushed etching a line. She had caught Tweedledum bu the jacket, and thrown him back across the compartment, and then grabbed his right arm, jamming her heel into his armpit, and pulled. The shoulder dislocated with a sound like a turkey wing being ripped off, and he screamed, trying with his left to stop her. She was screaming in Ukrainian, pulling againg and again, but the muscles weren't giving. She kicked his elbow from below, dislocating it as well, then bent his arm even as he screamed to reach the table and the butcher's knife beside his head.

"Sasha!" The woman looked over her shoulder at the Captain, who still stood nonchalantly with one leg kicked up like an exotic dancer showing off for an appreciative customer. Her foot was on the broken arm of her opponent, and everytime he started to move, she leaned against it. "If you do it, you'll clean up the blood."

The younger woman snarled, then buried the knife in her opponent's chest. As he gasped away his life, she turned, crossing her arm like a kid who had to come home right now. "There." She said with that accent. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic." Lori looked back to Simonov. "Nika?"

"All down." She lifted her foot, and the one who only had a barbeque fork in his throat stopped breathing when it smashed down. "And not getting up, Skipper."

"Excellent." She purred. "Then-" her head spun toward the hatch. As if that movement had been another signal the others snatched up weapons, aiming them at the hatchway. For several tense seconds they stood or knelt there, ready to unleash hell, then a hand came into view, waving up and down like someone trying to get attention across a crowded tram platform.

"I say, is it safe to come in now?"

"Nigel, one of these days..." Lori sighed. "Yeah, all clear."

Nigel Shimboku looked around the corner just in case, then stepped into view. He had been a citizen of London, in the British Protectorate state, and by definition, a Cockney, though you would hever have told it unless he was upset. His accent was pure Public School. "Oh, good. I see you handled it without my help."

"Help?" Henry asked. "You mean having you stand around whining because someone hit you?"

"You know I can't stand violence up close and personal." Nigel sniffed. "Some of us are not barbarians who handle everything by beating on it, or skewering it." He loked at his watch. "That being said, I think we should get underway rather sharpish."

"Oh god." Lori stopped leaning on the mewling man's arm. "Sasha, take care of this POS. I have work to do." She took off at a run, passing Ralph Conner who was carrying a limp form over his shoulder, and a shoulder bag of data chips.

"Vacuumed out both his computer, and the lab." He said. The man he was carrying moaned, and Conner slapped him. "Quiet, I'm working here. We took down the lab just like we planned."

"Breakage?"

"Ours or theirs?"

She sighed. "Did we rescue anyone?"

He shook his head sadly. "The facility was right over a garbage chute right over main recycling. And of course they 'fixed' it so no one noticed the bodies." He hefted the bag. "Seventeen we know of so far. But that only goes back four months. There were three being processed, and none of them would have been more than a vegetable if we hadn't just ended their misery." He whacked the man he carried again. "This is the lab rat that did the work. Only he and Simonov knew the secret. When Nigel saw them, he went a little overboard."

"Then we had best get the hell out of here before Hell pays a visit." She moved past him then was running again. Sean Jaeger was in the pilot's chair, already talking to docking control. "-She'll be-" He looked up, then turned back to the controls. "Captain's here."

Lori took her chair, and spent several minutes clearing the docking procedures. When you arrived, you had to access your bank accounts to pay for docking fees, sanitary tank draining, air fees, reactor mass and vernier jets fuel; all of the little things that a station offered that cost money. When you left, you had to go through the same process in reverse, making sure any bills that had accrued during your stay was taken care of. As the old spacer saying went, when the anchor lifts, all debts were paid. The stations made sure they were before they unclamped the docking tube.

"Hiram?"

"Back getting the kettle boiling. He says our nodes will be hot in five."

"How much breakage did the bad guys get?"

"Nine. Of course the two idiots who came in to tell us we weren't supposed to be in the lab might survive with prompt medical attention."

"Might?"

"Well Nigel went a little overboard..."

"Christ on crutches, why does he always do that?"

"No idea, skipper."

"Did he at least set the blast doors to come down this time? I don't want a repeat of Amadeus Station."

"Oh I did that, except for the one in the lab itself. The fate of those two is in God's hands." He said piously.

"With Nigel going off? More in Satan's."

_Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius_." She looked at him curiously. "The last half of an old quote from Earth history, the Albigensian Crusade. 'for the Lord will surely know his own'." He looked up. "And I would say so will his Infernal Majesty." He flipped a switch. Docking tube disengaged. Thrust now." The ship slid backwards under mass thrusters

"You have the conn. I'm going to explain the facts of life to our guest." She stood, walking back in about 2.5gs, after all until the wedge came up, they were dependent on the grav plates. She had reached the mess hall as suddenly the ship went to the single grav of a wedge, causing her to literally bumped off the overhead. She rubbed her head cursing fluently in Chinese as she reached the hatch.

Nika was already reattaching the table; they had used bolts designed to break away so all she really had to do was use new ones. Henry stood over Simonov. While he was the least dangerous to the eye (Except for Lori herself) he had picked up the late Marko's flechette gun with the air of someone well trained in it's use. Sasha was picking up the cutlery, then with a sigh, grabbed the knife standing out of Marko's chest, and set in the sink. "See, Skipper? No muss no fuss." Lori pointed at where Sasha's first victim was still oozing on the deck. "Dyermo!"

Lori shook her head, and looked at Simonov. "Now, see what happens when you don't play nice?"

"I've got money-"

"Oh spare me. If money was all we were after, we would have cleaned out your bank accounts-"

"Which I did, skipper." Nigel was unfolding body bags, and had three of the men already stuffed into them. "Cash withdrawal, all here." He slapped his pocket.

She gave him a minatory glare, then turned back to Simonov. "Excuse my associate. He doesn't get out much."

"I can tell you how Beauty is manufactured-"

"Beauty is usually supplied by reputable pharmaceutical houses in the core. It is an artificial endorphin derivative, and while it could be produced in the lab at great expense, there are far cheaper ways to make it. This is because endorphins are naturally created and released by the human pituitary gland when the body is overworked, injured or otherwise stressed." She quoted pedantically. "It is harmless enough to its users, and is used under a doctor's supervision under patient self control for terminally ill patients instead of the antique morphine based systems, since they discovered that someone on such a regimen will give themselves enough to feel better, and no more, and it is not addictive, except for a psychological one.

"The cheap way to do it was discovered by Mesa about forty-five years ago. They discovered it quite by accident when they still ran 'Verdant Vista' before it became Torch. They recover the bodies of slaves when they can because the corpses have uses in the culturing of bacteria and some of the more pervasive molds of the planet, which are then processed into other pharmaceutical products. Bowdry medical, a wholly owned subsidiary of Manpower was examining a corpse who had died without a noticeable mark, and discovered that one local plant has a toxin in it's thorns that paralyzes the nervous system; sort of like curare of Earth It also causes excruciating pain during the last stages before death. A blood test found that there was something like four or five times the amount of endorphins as would be found in someone who had been injured; closer to what would be found if you had lost a limb in an industrial accident.

"The drug you call 'Beauty' was harvested from the brains of human beings, and even more hideously obtained. They would take slave; usually those who showed a lick of resistance by injecting them with the refined toxin, then put them on life support. A needle was placed into the pituitary gland," she mimed stiking something into the back of her neck, "and the endorphins were drawn out before they reach the bloodstream. Since the body is still in agony, the gland goes into hyper production with consequences for the "donor" which range from massive retardation and motor control loss to death.

"But you didn't have the toxin did you?" Nigel asked furiously. "So instead you stuffed needles in them and then had your Doctor Mengele wannabe torture them." He looked up at Lori. "We can't be sure how many his men just 'collected' off the station or the planet, but there was fifty people reported missing just in this system in the last ten months alone. If you go over everywhere he has connections, you're talking maybe three hundred or more. We don't know yet how long he's been in operation, but we know he's been running and distributing it in the nearest five sectors for at least that long."

Simonov smirked, leaning back. "So you think you got me? I have a lawyer, and better yet, I _listen_ to her. You took me without due process. No warrant, no extradition. There's nowhere in the galaxy that can try me without that!"

"Well yes and no." Lori purred. "Oh if we were actually members of any law enforcement agency, you would be correct. After all, a cop can't just peek in your backyard windows then arrest you for a crime he saw committed. It's like the old puzzle given to cops; you're serving a search warrant for a stolen piano. You happen to look in a drawer, and see illegal narcotics. You can't use it in an arrest because you could not fit a piano in the drawer. But if the drugs were hidden in the piano bench or the piano itself, you could. As for warrants of any kind, or extradition proceedings, you have so many judges, politicians and constables in your payroll that every attempt so far has failed.

"But there is a way around that. You see, if I leave you on the courthouse steps somewhere you _don't_ have those connections, and where you are a wanted man, there is nothing that says they just untie you and let you go. Provided of course they didn't arrange to have you there. And as I said we're a small private enterprise team, and make a good living delivering small cargoes. That includes the occasional asshole." She gave him a smile as feral as his own had once been. "You might think you're smart. After all, an industrialist named Henry Ford said it back in the Old United States when someone was trying to prove he was stupid. "'If I want to know the answer to that question, I hire someone who can give me the answer'." She motioned.

"Case in point. My ship is named after a creature in an ancient poem called the Hunting of the Snark. The readers are warned that some Snarks are actually Boojums, which literally leave no trace of you to find. Just as it says in the final stanza:

"'In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see'."

Behind them a section of the station, about 4,000 cubic meters of a dock far from where her ship had been, blew away as a fuel air explosion equal to 4,000 kilos of blasting explosive put an end to some poor victims suffering.

Yep, he had gone overboard big time.


	2. Delivery

One thing, I quoted some lines from a TV show from the 70s. Any takers on the Title of the TV show?

**Torch**

Business was picking up. The average Verge got maybe a dozen ship arrivals a year. Outlying system even less. Until another more prosperous Star-nation found them, they didn't even have that unless their tech base had gotten back to at least basic impeller drive and hyperdrive generators. As an already going concern, and wealthy in pharmaceutical products, Torch had an average of two ships a month.

It took too damn long to travel using the old sleeper ships, try decades some times; and a sarcastic Science Fiction writer back in the first century Pre-Diaspora had used the actual flight times, so one Planet heard something that offended them over an old radio telescope transmission (As if that would have worked!), built a fleet to attack, and when they arrived, the man who had said it was long dead, and the people on that world didn't even know why, since the comment had been something of a joke even when it was said originally.

Sort of like killing people in the 20th century CE because someone had made a joke in Mycenaean Greek back when it was more common. Try 3,000 years.

That first contact could go either way. The trader who accidentally found you when he stopped for repairs might have things he could sell that would boost your tech level that you could afford. Something as minor as teaching your people how to generate electricity could have major ramifications on the local level. Hell, one planet had started their road to the future when someone who had studied postindustrial history, had taught them how to make _soap_! Then again, the first explorers of the Western hemisphere had recorded landing near where the Plymouth Colony was placed a decade or so later. That second landing found an uninhabited chunk of the continent; the previous ship had delivered a disease that wiped out the closest native village.

The problem was that everyone points at what was called the Imperial era or Age of Exploration on old Earth for a lot of mankind's worst crimes. But often enough, some primitive tribesman would attack those ancient wooden ships believing they could operate them for themselves right up to the age of steam and iron ships. Or do everything they could to circumvent something as simple as inoculations because they violated some religion.

Then this little free trader would go on, and soon enough, corporations would come wanting to dump products they couldn't sell (Or had been proven unsafe) on these outer worlds. Even the poorest planet had something to sell, and sometimes it was a lot more valuable than the locals knew. The fur trade in Earth's Western hemisphere had men selling cheap worked metal products for very valuable fur. Land for basing was also valuable. While only historians remembered who Peter Stuyvesant had been, everyone remembered the 24 dollars worth of glass beads paid for Manhattan Island.

Once you were discovered, the problem wasn't what to buy, it was how to stop people you didn't want to come visiting. There had been at least a dozen vest pocket empires that had formed when one nation with an acquisitive leader developed impellers first, and decided to extend their hegemony. Or pirates looking for a base would find some world no one knew about yet, and set up shop. Of course that might cause others; say a squadron from people the pirates had been preying on, to show up.

Or the corporation that had what used to be called a gold mine in valuable goods under their hands, and had the thugs to keep the locals under. So once you actually finally talked to a _government_, the first thing you wanted was weapons to stop them, be it pirates, overbearing businessmen, or your neighbor. In fact about half of those little empires had started when someone bought those ancient weapons, and proceeded to conquer their neighbors.

So when TRMS _Vaclav_ _Havel_ spotted two small hyper footprints, she immediately changed course to intercept. They were both dispatch boats squawking Solarian transponder codes- Her tactical officer's eyes narrowed. One was now squawking a _Torch_ Merchant code. That was a violation of International law except as a ruse de guerre by a naval unit in time of war.

She wasn't sure if it was a _really_ stupid pirate, an even more stupid naval officer (And they were Legion in the League) or some Sollie Megacorp trying to pretend they were local. "Moishe, we got a transponder change on target beta. Was reading as Solarian; SS Boojum. Now reading as TRMMV _Jael_."

He grinned. "Com, get me _Jael_."

Twenty second later, Moishe Clinton smiled as the signal came back. Lori sat sideways in her command chair, legs kicked up on to the arm. "This is TRMMV Jael, Captain Pettigrew commanding. That you, Moishe?" As laid back as it sounded, the Torch military was still at the stage where everyone from General (Or Admiral) down to the man swabbing the deck were usually still on a first name basis, and even still sharing the same mess deck on most occasions. While sounding unprofessional, the ancient Israeli Army had been kicking ass and not bothering to take names for almost a century before they finally gave in and got into the officer/enlisted man schism.

"On the chip. You didn't get past me. That bucket has had more names than a Hollywood actress! Send it."

The view didn't change. For all the world, Lori looked like some rich girl playing with her father's yacht. But some of the deadliest animals man had found were also the prettiest.

"I resent that! We haven't even been near that planet." She flipped her legs up so she was now seated properly. "Or the city on Earth, or the ones on how many is it, sixteen other League worlds?"

"Well maybe next time you'll have someone who is brain dead when it comes to history."

"Then I'll just have to work a little harder. Got a delivery for the Maven."

"Then be about it. Drinks later? Our patrol ends at 1350."

"Sure. _Jael_ clear."

"Jael?" The tactical officer asked.

"Book of Judges, Chapter 4. When the Judge Deborah told the General Barak to go against 900 iron chariots with 10,000 troops, he was nervous, and in verse 8 Barak said to her, 'If you go with me, I'll go. But if you don't go with me, I won't go.'

"She replied, in verse 9, 'All right,' I'll go with you. But because of the way you are doing this, you won't receive any honor. The Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman'.

"After the battle was won, Sisera hid in the tent of Heber, someone he trusted." Clinton smiled.

"In verse 21, 'But Heber's wife Jael picked up a tent stake and a hammer. She went quietly over to Sisera. He was lying there, fast asleep. He was very tired. She drove the stake through his head right into the ground. So he died'." Clinton sighed. "She's hell on wheels, but she believes in giving her opponents at least some chance to understand what is going to happen to them, so when you hear an oddball name for one of our ships, be sure to look it up.

"She always gives them names of something or someone a lot deadlier than they look. When you're off duty look up the names in the database. As it is, I know one thing at least. You're not studying your Talmud. Shame on you."

**Good News and Bad News**

TRMMV Jael slowed to rest compared to the system, then jolted as the tug _Hauler_ snagged her with a tractor beam. The Manticore System had instituted a rule where either you had a local pilot or two of your own pilots aboard who had been insystem before, for all ships approaching the planets. And no one, no matter how experienced was allowed within ten light seconds with active impellers.

Call them paranoid, but nothing massing more than 50,000 tons was allowed to approach without a local pilot period, and no closer than 15 light seconds. Anything that large moving at any appreciable speed could do what an asteroid had done to the dinosaurs 65 odd million years ago on Earth. Then again, with the attempted attack by the Peoples Navy in Exile almost a year ago, maybe they weren't paranoid.

After all, even paranoids have enemies.

The crew maintained their stations or went to the mess hall, because having to walk around in 9gs (Being towed at 150g) was something only Nika was able to do for any great length of time. She actually _exercised_ when the ship was being towed. So a chair (Again, except for Nika) was obligatory. The captain was busy checking in. She had accounts here, so all she had to do was reactivate them, and contact station security to have someone come aboard and drag Simonov and his weasel off the ship. She had not asked his name, and frankly didn't care. Anyone who would torture someone just for a _paycheck_ deserved what he was going to get.

But finally they were cut loose, the station docking tractor pulled them to the tube, and locked on. She stood, stretching. "You and Hiram make sure security takes them off your hands. Then you're off until we depart. I'm going down to talk with the Maven, and see if she has anything for us."

Customs was just a wave as she went past. She ignored the scream from some Sollie business man about the unfairness, and ignored the argument that followed. Torch station was small; barely ten kilometers across, but there were already plans for expansion. What they hadn't expanded much was the personnel shuttle system. A dozen of the Mesan shuttles; both heavy lift and personnel, had been given pretty much outright to people who would pay off the cost over the next couple of decades. She looked at the names, finally choosing a passenger shuttle with a flashing yellow light, meaning it would depart when they had enough passengers. A man saw her, and perked up. They must be close to full.

"One for Beacon?" She said.

"Sure. We'll be a few more minutes, ma'am. Need four more-" He paused as she flashed her card, took the scanner out of his hand, put in a number, and ran it. He saw she'd paid for six.

"I'm in a bit of a rush."

He grinned. "Call me George. The wife's got everything up, and we're good to go." They swam the tube, and Lori strapped herself in as he walked up the rest of the way to the cockpit. "Light the candle Nicki."

"Aren't we still light? You said we had four seats available-"

"Some big spender just paid for six just to get out early."

"Some people have no patience."

George Sierra strapped in, sliding on his headset. "Station control, this is _Bumblebee_. Ready to depart."

"Roger Bumblebee. Shuttle incoming at 215 positive fifteen will cross your path in five minutes."

"Thank you, Control. Departing now." He smoothly fed fuel to the thrusters, pushing away from the station. As he rotated the big bird, he noticed Nicki chatting with the other shuttle.

"No, Myra, you rub the salt and pepper mixture into the bird _before_ you put it in the oven. No, no, I know it makes your hands greasy, but if you want to do it right, it has to be rubbed in." She looked up. "Gotta go, we'd headed down. Right. Bye." She checked the approach radar. "We're clear."

"You know what Myra likes to make for Dinner." He commented.

They answered together. "Reservations!"

**The Institute**

Ruth Winton sat at her desk, surveying her domain. When she'd left Mount Royal Palace to live her dream at one remove, she had never expected to be not only the head of intelligence of a new star nation, but it's founder as well. All she had wanted was a chance to see something beyond the Palace!

Well if it was something she was starting, she would do it up brown. She had chosen it's name with malice aforethought, and so far, only two people, Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachet, had gotten the joke.

The Institute.

Like anyone in her position, she knew that a century or more from now, people would consider what she did as procedure. She remembered the Greats; Sir Francis Walsingham who had started the old British Special Intelligence Service long before it got the name. Iron Felix Dzerzhinski who had founded the Cheka, which later became the KGB, and William Donovan, who had created the OSS during the Second World War. The first true Intelligence service the old United States had.

When it came her turn to create her agency, she had gone back to the old Israeli Mossad, or The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, though it was called only by it's short form. There had been a joke way back when that the entire annual budget of the Mossad would not have paid for what the old CIA spent on paperclips. But as small as it had been in it's day, it had been a highly efficient, lean and mean agency. The nation it had been created to protect had a past not unlike the genetic slaves. Historically treated like non human refuse, they had come from a charnel house that had seen over five and a half million human beings of their faith reduced to nothing more than air pollution and consumer products. A lot of them had been worked literally to death, the others poisoned then reduced to ash and bone to be used for fertilizer, hair for mattresses, and fat for candles.

As much as haters of their race had linked them with those that slaughtered them, they had a good reason for their antipathy for the world in general. Because as they had struggled to live, and died, the rest of the world had ignored their plight. Because of that, the Mossad had few rules. They would hunt those who treated them as prey where ever they hid, and to hell with national borders. If a nation didn't destroy their enemy, they would.

At one point, after a brutal attack and murder of a number of their athletes at a series of games meant to foster peace, they had struck back and systematically destroyed the terrorist organization that had claimed responsibility, going so far as to allow one of their own to be burned in a supposedly 'failed' attack just to draw out the last of their targets. There had never been a major operation against their citizens in other nations after that.

Of course it was still early days for a nation barely five years old. Considering a lot of those 'lost sheep' she had an overabundance of killers and terrorists at her beck and call. If she had wanted to, she could have every man who were left handed with red hair between 21 and senility on Old Terra killed, though it would take years. Or any smaller number eliminated.

When it came to Mokri Dela, Wet Work, she was oversupplied.

"Maven? Captain Pettigrew to see you."

"Send her in, Jason, please"

Case in point. The woman who entered the office looked as if she should be studying in a middle school somewhere. Like a lot of the 'sex' models Manpower sold, she was startlingly attractive. If she looked even five years older, she would be beating men off with a stick. Then again, anyone who came on to her before she knew them would meet the stick soon enough.

Lori had been rescued by a Beowulf Biological Survey Corps ship in the back of beyond of Galactic South almost forty years ago. While the name suggested scholarly men and women who would go from planet to planet cataloging and discussing what might be transplanted safely, they were some of the most efficient at shuffling slavers off this mortal coil. Whenever there was rumor of slaver operations, they would mosey on in like an Earth cow looking for fresh grass, and while everyone thought them about as bright, when they left a lot of bad people were dead.

Slavers had taken up residence on a station, and they had come in pretending to be yet another delivery. When the smoke cleared, eight slavers were dead, and the Chief Engineer, Robert Tadaroki Pettigrew had found a small girl of perhaps eight in a bedroom, clutching herself in agony with blood on her thighs. He had started to help, but she began to scream, beating on his hand as she did.

He had handed her off to the ship's medical officer; gladly a woman, and he had brought samples of what she had found to the lab on board the ship. The girl, still shivering like a horse surrounded by wolves, was taken to the main airlock, and watched as the last man to use her was spaced.

Ruth wanted to sigh. As much as Manpower's advertizing suggested people were as easy to make as the average car, when it came to some things, you couldn't just dump the genes together and have the perfect slave pop out the other end. You need to educate them sufficiently to do their jobs.

And if you think what that meant for a sex slave, it was worse. Try starting when they are six and keeping at it until they were properly 'broken in'. God, treating a human being, a _child_, as if they were a new set of shoes!

She smiled at the woman. "You've heard the old phrase, 'good news and bad news'?"

Lori looked at her, and while she was still the perfect china doll to the unknowing, her eyes flamed. She nodded. "Give me the bad news."

"After speaking to Acting Chief Justice Moran, we can't accept custody of Simonov or his man that you have."

Lori started cursing fluently in Chinese. Ruth leaned back, and let her. When she finally ran down (She had shifted to perfectly fluent German halfway through the two minute diatribe) she commented. "But there is good news."

"What. We get to throw them out the lock ourselves?"

"Oh nothing so... merciful. Actually, a dispatch boat from Beowulf was here last week, and when we told them who you went after, they were very interested. In fact there was already a standing reward of 50,000 Solarian Credits for anyone known to be dealing in Beauty. It's all yours. But you do have to deliver him to Beowulf personally."

Lori shook her head. "You do know my crew is either on the ground or soon to be? By all the gods of man, I might not reach the two on board before _they_ shuttle down!"

"I took the liberty of asking them to wait until you can call them. However, I did not call them in time to stop four of them from leaving the station."

"For my sins." Lori sighed. "What is Moran's problem?" Giuseppe Moran was from Erewhon, and was the acting Chief Justice for the entire court system of Torch until enough indigenous lawyers could pass the bar and get elected.

That was a bit trickier. "Do you know the phrase, 'Graymail'?"

"No."

Back when the First Soviet Union was still at odds with the United States-" Lori raised her hand.

"You mean 1917 to 1989 CE?"

"Yes. Back then, if one of the Soviet spies were caught and brought to trial, Soviet agents would pass their lawyers lists of operations they knew those men were trying to ferret out. Under the disclosure laws, if they were known to have been close, the Government lawyers were required to hand over the information to the lawyer, judge, even the jury sometimes. Someone, they thought, would talk, and they could get what they wanted for nothing.

"That's why they had so many exchanges, trading Soviet agents for people held by the Communists rather than trials."

"Didn't the Communists have trials?"

"Of course they did. But they were always the defendant admitting his crimes, asking for mercy, and being sent off to prison. Just for show."

"Then maybe we should pass a law here where it can't be used."

Ruth chuckled at that. Until they had a larger House of Commons, and at least a start on a House of Lords, most laws (That Berry had promised could later be repealed simply by challenging them once the lower house was at least a quarter full) were chosen by Berry herself, Princess Ruth, Web Du Havel, Jeremy X and Thandi Palane; usually around the morning coffee table. "If I bring some chocolate filled doughnuts, I know I can get Jeremy and Thandi on my side."

"What, Berry doesn't like chocolate?"

"She _loves_ chocolate. Bring it near her at your own peril. Unfortunately too many of those coming from out system know or assume it and arrive with kilo upon kilo of it from everywhere you can name. She's taken to paraphrasing Laocoon from Virgil. 'Beware of goddamned salesmen bearing gifts'."

"Then I had best get my crew together and get out of here."

"One more thing." Ruth picked up a chip folder. "We've found out there is a 'sex slave' get together on a station. We don't have a lot, yet. But enough for Thandi to begin planning an operation to free them." Lori looked at the folder as if it were a grenade with the pin pulled. "We do have some information on who is going to be there, and their... Two of them are of your series."

Lori took the folder, trying not to crush it. Ex-slaves treated this in different ways. Some met them, embraced them as if they were long lost family, which in a way, they were. Others ignored them unless they met, and then it was like a man meeting his ex-wife who now looks trim and happy on the arm of another man.

"When they get here..." Lori pocketed it.

"I know. We'll have accounts set up and every support they need by the time they hit ground. I promise." She knew to the Agorot exactly how many Torch Shekels she paid for this woman and her team. Oh she also knew that when they took down a target, they also fleeced his accounts, adding insult to injury. But as far as she knew, it was like the song from the recent play based on an ancient television show of the 1970s CE;

They robbed the rich, gave to the poor

Except what they kept for expenses!

She knew for a fact that after the first mission, they had never even touched the accounts that money was in except for necessary maintenance of the ship beyond spending it on things like the medical infrastructure where they had donated one hell of a lot more than _she_ was paying them!

Lori turned to leave. "What, you're not going to look at the information?"

Lori turned back. "Not until we're well away. Because if I look at it before I get those reprobates aboard, I might just kill someone."

**Beacon**

The best way to deal with Beacon was to picture the stories about the Old West of the Old United States like Dodge City or Tombstone. As much as liberals try to disarm the populace in an attempt to curb crime, one thing you get in return is rudeness. If the man you just jostled can't either beat you senseless, or kill you, you probably don't even bother to acknowledge their presence.

And as much as they point at statistics when they make a try for the weapons, they are misleading. If a city has 50,000 people, and has 520 violent crimes a year, how is that different when it's 5 million, with 52,000? If you do the math, you see the violent crime rate has not changed, but they point not at the percentage, they always point at the _numbers_!

It was actually _safer_ to live in Dodge City on it's worst day then it was to live on any day in New York of the time.

The citizens of Beacon were almost belligerently armed. But it wasn't because they feared anyone who lived there. As the Ancient Marine Corps (And Torch had taken the saying as their own) had enshrined, 'yeah thou I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil... For I am the meanest thing in it!'.

Actually, the wildlife of the planet was stubborn enough to make mere sea wearing away stone despair. There were avians (You couldn't call all of them birds, too many were more bird analogs) that traveled too fast for a mere sonic fence to stop them. And don't even start on things that burrowed! Some thought of the sonic fences Mesa had installed to stop them as something to dive below.

So along with other humans being polite, you need a weapon that would stop something that thought of you as _lunch_. On the frontier (Which Beacon definitely was) you have to think of your life first. So any would be foot pad took his life in his own hand when he said, 'your money, or your life'.

Lori was actually lightly armed. She carried a Colt-Volund 1 mm needle gun that could take down anything on the planet with one shot. Anywhere inside the League it was considered an assassin's weapon, and there were jail sentences measured in decades for mere possession. But here it was considered a tool.

She was in the 'bad' section of town, which as anyone who has lived near a port knows, starts at the docks. All of those sailors (Or spacers) wanting to have something to drink and blow off steam. Unlike military crews, a merchant ship needing a crew would accept monkeys if they could figure a way to talk to them. The problem is, what used to be called 'cabin fever'. Crews had arrived with half of them dead back in the day. So they had a lot of steam to blow off.

She approached the fifth bar near the landing pads, and went in. She had decided she would definitely have a drink this time. The chip folder was a ton weight in her pocket, and she hadn't even found those assholes yet! It was dim, and she paused. As much as they used it for a dramatic pause, she wondered how often it happened because you went from bright day to darkness. The bartender knew her, so it wouldn't be a problem. She strode across the floor, sliding into an empty bar stool. "Rusty Nail." She ordered.

The bartender was delivering the drink as someone loomed behind her. "You bastard! Serving an underage girl!" The man was not only three sheets to the wind, more sails were being hoisted. He patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, little lady-"

As he had been speaking, her left hand dropped below the bar as the right picked up her drink. The bartender saw his eyes widen, then tighten from excruciating agony. All anyone else saw was someone who suddenly stiffened, then suddenly hunched forward forearms on the bar, head bowed over them as if called on to pray because of some schedule like the original Islamic faith.

She sipped appreciatively, setting down the glass, then leaned over as if whispering sweet nothings into his ear. "Now listen, you moron. I'm forty-five goddamned T years old. I am old enough to be your _mother_ you bag of hormones! Are you listening? I can't tell." She squeezed, and he whimpered. "Good. Now listen; I am actually a fun girl to be around, but right now I am rather busy. The next time we see each other you can treat me like a lady, buy me dinner, and maybe, maybe, we might make some beautiful music.

"But just a warning. All of those cutesy names guys call their girlfriends? All they do is irritate me. Think of something that fits me, not some 'one size fits all' crap. Now, I am going to let go. Remember that I am some tiny little woman, and you have problems making sure your knuckles don't drag. The next time you talk to me, you will _respect_ me. Otherwise I will rip these off, saute them in a white wine sauce, serve them up on a bed of steamed rice, and _you_ _will eat them_. Are. We clear. On This?" On the last sentence she squeezed at every word. He nodded frantically.

"Good." She purred, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "You're cute. Maybe next time we won't have... problems." She lifted her hand a moment before he staggered back. "I am sure you have _something_ to do somewhere else." The man looked at her like someone who had reached in to pet a cute little gerbil, and found out it was a hungry baby Kodiak Max. He walked away, but he walked halfway across the room without looking away from her.

"Ah, young love." She sighed, sipping. "Have you seen anyone else in my crew, Manolo?"

"Sasha was here earlier." He reported. "Nigel is over there demonstrating nitroglycerin-"

The glass shattered. "He's doing _what_? _Where_?" He pointed. She spun, saw the Brit sitting at a table with five observant men, and in front of him, a smoking glass of a reddish colored fluid. "Shit!"


	3. Wagers

One aside, I was criticized for using advertized earlier. I would like to accept the blame, but for some reason the version of Open Office I use has it in their dictionary as properly spelled. Don't ask me why...

**Wagers**

Nigel had the look of a serious chemist from some of those ancient movies, lifting the smoking glass as he gently allowed a yellow viscous liquid to flow down the side to lay on top of it. "Now after you add the glycerin, you have to-"

"Did you leave your goddamned brain aboard ship?" Lori hissed furiously. He hadn't flinched, he merely looked up at her mildly as he tilted the glass back and setting it down carefully. Now it was red with a thin layer of yellow.

"Whatever do you mean, Captain?" He motioned toward the four very attentive men with him. "I was explaining how to make nitroglycerin-"

"I've seen the trick, you _Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze_! Remember Rockaway? We almost died because you had to teach some idiot how to make it!"

"Now that was uncalled for, Captain." The son of a bitch sounded hurt! "Mother doesn't drool; well, not much, and father was a human being, not a monkey. But you do seem rather upset, so I'll just have to dispose of it." He snatched up the glass.

Lori hit the deck. There were several seconds of stunned silence, and she looked up from where her arms had been crossed over her head. Nigel sat there, then carefully poured the liquid into his mouth, rolled it around as if using mouthwash, and swallowed. Three of the men were cursing, and she saw bills hitting the table before they stormed off.

She rolled to her feet, eyes boring into him like broadside weapons. "Any last explanations before you die?" She snarled.

He gave her another benign look. "I actually did remember Rockaway, and remembered how upset you where, so when these asteroid miners asked me what I knew about explosives, I mentioned how good old fashioned nitroglycerin was. But I also told them my captain and the local gendarmes would be upset if I really made it, so I used some dry ice, locally made vodka for nitric acid, and some of that Aki plum liqueur they make on Texas True with the super plums for sulfuric acid, with Galliano floated atop it-"

She hit him. He'd scared her out of a years growth, and she wanted to kill him. But instead she punched him right in the mouth, sending him over on his back. He looked up, casually wiped his mouth, then stood. He gathered up the money on the table, then looked at the last two men, one eyebrow raised. Both pulled out a sheaves of bills, counted out some, and dropped them on the table and walked toward the bar.

She looked at him as he collected the money. He looked up, and she merely stared until finally he broke the silence. "I explained to them all that the last time I did this I used the actual chemicals and it blew a bar and two stores up when some idiot thought it was just chemicals, and I was full of it. When you came in, I told them you had been there when it happened and bet if you thought I was doing it again, you'd do something like diving to the floor."

"And the other men?"

"Oh, When they saw you bet you'd scream at me. I bet you'd punch me."

She shook her head. "Let's get out of here, you great tub of Yak butter."

After they had walked out, the patrons of the bar looked at each other. The bartender sighed. "All right you bastards, one round on me." As they bellied up to take advantage, he turned to the kegs of beer. "I thought for sure she'd kill him this time." He grumbled.

**Public relations and comedy**

"Who else came down with you?" Lori asked stalking down the steps to the street.

"Nika, Henry, and Sasha. What ever is the problem?"

She explained tersely as she looked around. When Nigel began to talk, she waved her hand, closing her eyes.

"That way." She strode down the street. There was a little mom and pop noodle shop with a curtain that showed it was open, and as they came up, they could hear two sides of a conversation.

"Really, you should try to get along with my mother." Nika said.

"Yes dear." Henry sounded as if he wasn't listening. The automatic reply of a man who had heard every comment his wife ever made, and simply set up a mental loop to reply.

"After all, she did say she liked having you as a son in law."

"Yes dear."

"Even after you threw up in the punchbowl."

"Whatever you say, dear."

"So will you at least try to get along?"

"Your wish is my command, dear."

She lifted the flap to find Nika finishing her fourth, no fifth bowl of noodles. Henry was still working on his first, and wasn't even close to finishing.

"Take it to go, Henry, we have to head out."

The man waved to the cook, who slipped him a plastic bowl to pour the rest in. As they slid from the benches, the woman who was cooking motioned Lori over. "That poor man. How long have they been married?"

"They're not. They just like to play at it when they have an audience. Keeps them in practice."

The woman looked at the flap, then at her. "Practice for what?"

"For when we work. It's... complicated. You know how actors are."

"Ah." Lori could still see the woman was confused, but wasn't going to tell her what they actually did for a living.

They found Sasha two doors down. She was draped across a snoring drunk like a kitten who had found a warm place to sleep. Her eyes snapped open as she heard the gentle tread, then she relaxed again. "Captain, I found the perfect man for me." She slurred. "His name is even Boris! Boris X!" she reached up, turning his head so her crewmates could see his face and both profiles which would have caused him to scream if he was sober and awake. "Just look at that face!" Then she reached in, and pulled his tongue out which caused him to choke a bit, but still didn't wake him. "An just look at that! He's got a perfect code!" She let the tongue go, wrapping her arms around the man's neck, curling even closer as she whispered endearments.

"How did you meet this...gentleman?"

"He thought I was cute, and suggested we have a few drinks." The woman moved one arm to motion at half a dozen empty liquor bottles. Anyone seeing her would have thought she was a lightweight, but the girl had a hollow leg. "An before he passed out, he said I was cute!" She settled back against him, happy as a seriously drunken clam.

"It's nice that you found true love... yet again." Nigel commented. "But we must fly my sweet."

"But why?" She asked plaintively. She couldn't have gotten closer without cutting him open and clearing space in his chest. "I am waiting for him to wake up. When he does, he is mine."

Lori reached down, and gently separated the arms. Sasha was a descendant of the bioenhanced 'super soldiers' of Earth's Last Great War, so she could have broken free easily. But true love (Bolstered by large amounts of alcohol) made her putty in her captain's hands. "We have a mission, Sasha, so we have to go."

"What?" Shasha was trying to keep up, but it was tough going. "Can it wait a leetle bit?" She raised a hand with her thumb and forefinger just a few millimeters apart. "Until I'm, I'm..." She looked around. "What is it you do with eggs?"

"Fry?" Henry asked.

"Boil?" Nika said.

"Yeah, can it wait until I get fried?"

_You're already fried,_ Lori thought. "I'm afraid not. Nika, do you mind?"

The woman sighed, took the hand, and effortlessly hoisted Sasha over her shoulder.

"Why am I hanging upside down?" a plaintive voice asked.

Lori sighed, went over to take care of the bill, and they trooped out. Except for some drunken singing (In Belorussian) from behind Nika, they moved silently.

There was a rattle, and three weapons came up as a pair of racing sticks came out of an alley followed by an irate tomcat. There was a bang from the old fashioned projectile gun Nigel carried, and a hiss from the needle gun Lori held. The one hit by the bullet literally flew backwards shedding parts. The other staggered as if every pair of the thirty odd legs was trying to tap dance to different music, and it collapsed in a heap. The cat snatched up the least damaged body, glared at them as if irritated that they had interfered with his hunt, and stalked off.

The needle gun was a logical projection of what used to be called a taser. Instead of wires leading back, a high discharge capacitor was built into each round, and it discharged over 50,000 volts at 10 amps, more than enough to kill anything man had yet run into. In the hands of a good shot, it was accurate to 100 meters.

The problem (As most legal systems looked at it) was that someone armed with one of the actual assassin models (A tube with a trigger and only one dart) could quite literally walk through a restaurant, shoot someone with it, and walk out before anyone even knew what had killed him. The fact that hers (Designed for special government agents) looked like a gun and was not easy to conceal would have cut no ice since she wasn't such an operative.

Modern skin suits and unpowered armor would shrug the needles off, and designers had begun to actually market civilian clothing designs that would ground the charge, at least in the core.

A needle gun would take down anything that lived on this planet, right up to a Tri-Rex. And carried enough ammunition to deal with a pack of Psuedo-velociraptors, and if she saw, one a partridge in a pear tree. Hell, if she lined them all up, she could blow away the entire cast of the song the Twelve days of Christmas before reloading.

Lori looked to the side, and felt a fond smile tug at her lips. This was the core team she had created all those years ago, even before Torch had been liberated. At times she remembered the character Topsey from Uncle Tom's Cabin, and when people asked, she's replied 'They just growed'. At other times, she considered the common pearl. Where ever planets had shellfish, grains of sand or grit would get inside, and the animal would coat it with whatever was the analog of mother of pearl so that years later some human could rip it open, usually eat the animal in it, and take the accreted ball to sell so some woman could wear it.

She was the grit in the shell of the universe, and they had become the pearl created to protect it from her. Or protect her from it; the analogy sort of fell apart about there.

"Nika?"

"Yes, Sasha."

"I'm going to be sick."

The large woman moved the girl around, walking to the nearest alley. Henry and Nigel went with weapons already drawn as the woman knelt, holding Sasha's hair back. Lori shook her head, the smile growing larger. You could tell when someone cares about you, they are the ones willing to hold your hair out of the line of fire.

**Nightmares and Salvation.**

Robert Pettigrew had hoped that killing the son of a bitch who had harmed the girl would help, but she still flinched if he even came close. Only Madeline Chow the medical officer could come close to her. But Pettigrew had been drawn to the girl since he had found her, and wasn't willing to give up.

Unlike a lot of BSC personnel, Robert and Madeline weren't genetic slaves. They had been born however, in a society that loathed the Dark Twin of Mesa. They had been taught that the first settlers of that other planet had come not from Earth or some nether hell, but from their own bosom. They had taken what Beowulf was renowned for, and converted in into a cash cow.

Face it, no one hates someone more virulently, than a respectable family who fathered people right up there with the doctors of the Nazi Death camps.

They had known and served together for two years, and even had a relationship, but he was adamant that slavery had to die, and she was too gentle a woman to be willing to cover herself in blood to attain that. When the girl slept, they had talked, and she had told him she was resigning.

As much as the girl clung to her, she could not merely send her back to Beowulf with the others. The girl needed a mother, and a full time one at that. Her gentle statement found a resonance in his own fury at those who had made the girl as a plaything There had to come a time even for a stark warrior where he has to put down his weapons, and discover if they had a live that didn't include death for a lot of others.

He had walked into sickbay enroute home a few days later, seeing Madeline busy at her computer, the girl on her lap like a limpet attached to a ship's hull. They knew the 'researchers' had called her Desiree, and Madeline had taken to calling her Dee instead. The girl watched him as if she were a kitten trapped in a hole with a Rottweiler outside of it. "Maddie. He knelt beside the chair. "If Dee doesn't mind, would you marry me?" The girl sat still, watching him with no emotion at all. He looked to her as Maddie turned at this comment.

"Dee. I promise you and Maddie. I will never raise a hand to you. You will be my daughter, and no daughter of mine will ever be treated badly by anyone ever again."

She pushed deeper into Maddie's bosom. "How do you know?" The girl whispered plaintively. It was the first time she had spoken to anyone, including Maddie.

"Because if they hurt you like that again, I'll kill them. I'll kill every one of them. But I won't try to be part of your life unless you and Maddie agree."

It wasn't that easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. But by the time they reached home, she was at least talking to the others in the crew. At one point he knew he had been accepted, and it had been simple. Maddie wasn't the ship's cook, but she was a very good cook. She had told Dee about a dish called a pot pie, and was going to make it, but the girl would not let her go. She had called him absently as he walked past the galley., looked at the girl and said, 'right now I need both hands,' and handed her to Robert. For a long time, the girl had sat there on the hollow of his arms as stiff as a mannequin, he had been afraid to even move.

As she had taken the filled pie shell and stuck it into the oven, she had glanced at them, and her face softened. She caught his eye, then looked down. As Madeline had nattered on, explaining how to make this or that, from the stewed meat and vegetables to making the fresh crust, the girl had begun to sag into Robert's arms. He had not noticed when her arms had gone around his neck, her legs spreading around his waist like a monkey holding on. Then, reassured by his inaction, she had fallen asleep against his chest.

The ship arrived, Madeline and Robert had married, and after a discussion with the girl who was now their daughter, she had chosen Lori as her name. They knew a good portion of the provenance of the decision; they had been watching a HD presentation of the last movie made by Lori Rose Connery right after the Diaspora began. Born with a rare medical condition, she had simply stopped maturing at puberty. Already a child actress, she had gone on to play child roles into her later forties long before Prolong existed.

At forty she began to show signs of aging, but until her death at sixty, she was still the childlike beauty. She just started getting roles that were more fantasy linked than dramatic. She had played Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream on the stage at 58, but she was best remembered when a Japanese studio had done a live action remake of a classic Anime named Plastic Little, where she had played the lead role, Captain Tita.

She had taken the bit in her teeth, and made the role her own. The scene where she and a much younger actress named Patience Phillips as Elise (Actually the sixteen her role said she was) were getting ready for the baths and Tita discovers a girl supposedly a year younger than her actually had larger breasts to Tita's whining disgust, was used at the Academy Awards that year when they both won an Oscar; Phillip's first, and Lori's fourth. Lori had thanked them, and instead of saying thanks, had said goodbye.

Prophetic words. She had been killed in a shuttle accident a week later.

If they had been paying more attention, her new parents would have known she still harbored hatred in her heart. She had been drawn fully into the movie, but it was the climactic scene where Tita hung over an Abyss, the villain counting down to when he is going to drop her, and battered, in pain, knowing she was probably going to die in the attempt, Tita preempted his countdown by screaming 'One!' as she raised her gun, and shot the much larger man between the eyes that set the girl's path in stone.

Most storytellers would have ended it then, a now happy family. But rescued slaves had psychological problems for a long time afterward. Even those who had escaped on their own did, because a lot of times, they left windrows of bodies in their wake.

In her case, the only thing that could remotely be called lucky is that they saved her when they did. Starting in the next year, she would have had to deal with not only men using her, she would have had to deal with women doing the same. After all, it is a typical man's fantasy to watch two women making love, they weren't going to leave that part of her 'training' out. Face it, if you remove the idea of gender or marital conditions from the word, there are as many female bastards out there as there are men. They might have had to sedate her rather than her finding someone she felt safe with.

So at eight years old, she met her therapist, Bridie Murphy. Like a number of therapists dealing with rescued slaves on Beowulf, she had once been a genetic slave herself. And like the lion's share of the ones who helped those who had been sex slaves, she had been one herself.

The biggest block in a therapist helping someone is understanding the problems they faced. Far too often in the old Catholic Church, the plaint had been that a priest didn't marry, and never had children, so what the hell did he know about the situation beyond church doctrine? No one could say that about the mental health care professionals of Beowulf, be they Psyche adjusters, or merely Psych-nannies, what used to be called Nurse-Practitioners. They had been there, and in the case of most of those who dealt with the sex slaves, had gone through all of the same horrors.

Back when mankind was still stuck on one planet, professionals had noted that a lot of the interactions with the family after a child had been abused, or a woman had been raped didn't help. If everyone is telling you it is not your fault, after a while you wonder if maybe they did think it was your fault, but weren't willing to say it. For a child it is worse, because in actual (rather than when a therapist used 'repressed memory) situations, the one abusing the child would lay the blame on the child. They were the ones who caused their suffering, not the sick son of a bitch (Again a lot of females were the cause) getting their own jollies.

Something like 3 percent of sex slaves escaped it by suicide after their rescue within a year. After all, you may be safe right now, but all that meant was all of the horrors could still encompass you once your protectors weren't watching.

A truly sadistic part of it was the method. To thoroughly break some child into the mold they wanted, Mesan 'trainers' had to use every one of those gentle touches a child's parents uses to bond with and make their child feel safe and happy, but instead used them to force them to conform and perform. While all slaves of whatever line started training at six, only the C or sex slave lines had punishments linked to sex.

So while a J line slave might feel the touch of a cattle prod when he didn't perform adequately, a sex slave would suffer all of the ignominy of what was still called Bondage and Discipline or sadomasochism. But where a submissive who voluntarily entered such a life style was, thanks to safe words, actually the one who determined how far things went, it was more like a torture session, where nothing you did or said could stop the sadist tormenting you.

It all came down to what the mental health brotherhood called 'Trigger events'. Something, sometimes as simple as a smell would throw the patient back into a fugue where they reacted to something used in training. After all, smell and taste are linked to what is called the lizard brain that is the foundation of the human one. Back then, a smell could mean an enemy, and a taste a warning that what you're about to eat is dangerous. And as much as man had progressed, those were still hardwired into the brain with no true way to circumvent them. Robert and Maddie routinely watched Lori as she began therapy, watching for times when she would react with fear or sudden stillness. They kept track of everything that was added to their environment as if they lived on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, and at the first sign, whether it was a reaction at home, out in the sunshine on a picnic, or mentions by Murphy, removed anything they could to limit it.

Working with an escaped sex slave had once been likened (By a Marine who had specialized in Explosive Ordinance removal) to working on a bomb where some really talented bomb maker had done everything they could to make it impossible to disarm. Sometimes the Nanny or doctor would merely pull back, and try to find another way past that block. Sometimes they succeeded. But other times, the bomb went off, and they lost the patient.

So things as simple as Robert offering a candy dish to Lori didn't happen until she was almost at puberty. He never initiated a hug until much later, or spoke angrily to her at all. The siblings of both parents were never Aunt and Uncle (Terms used when a new tormenter would take over), they were my brother or sister. Even the words dad or father were not used except when the adults spoke of their own parents.

As much as it broke his heart, he was Robert to the girl until she was twelve years old, and only then did she call him father. She had always introduced him as Robert to the friends she had finally found in life, or 'he's married to my mom'.

Oddly enough, the one thing that had not been poisoned had been reading to her. The slaves had done that, dealing with their younger members the same way humans had done for millennia. And there Robert was able to relate to her; she felt more comfortable if a man read to her than a woman for some reason. But he noticed and reported that the standard Grimm's fairy tales usually left her angry. Of all the heroines of those old stories, only Gretal came through as what she thought they should be. In that story, it was Gretal who finally ended them from slavery and eventual dying in the stew pot while her brother (In Lori's scathing denunciation) 'kicked back and stuffed himself while Gretal worked like a dog to free them'.

So he began to search for stories with strong young females.

She dove into the Chronicles of Narnia when her read them, but when she found that except for dying and being reborn in Narnia in the Final Battle, Lucy was only in the first three books, she lost interest.

He tried the ancient but still well loved Harry Potter series, but the character she enthused about was not Hermione, but rather Luna Lovegood and of all people, the Weasley Twins because they all just did what they wanted and expected the world to deal with them rather than try to make themselves fit.

Then he had found a short series between the other two, set in a post apocalyptic Earth. He examined them carefully, then started With Shadow's Daughter, which introduced one of the main characters Megan Whitlock. She wasn't really into it beyond the fact that it was both a girl and a small one at that, until she ended up as a slave, then killed her 'master', and focused on the child she had been forced to not only bear, but had been sold out of her arms.

By the time they reached the last, reuniting the child with his mother, and her lover (another woman, which she understood but had no interest beyond that) willing to admit it was her fault that caused problems in raising their adopted daughter, she was satisfied.

Then he found, unknowingly, a role model the girl could aspire to. A character named Modesty Blaise who had first started as a comic strip character, then had become one in books by the author and finally, in several badly made movies.

Everything about the character resonated in the now eleven year old girl. A displaced person after Earth's Second World War, she went from a wandering child begging for herself and an old man she had begun to protect, to running a criminal gang so efficiently that she could have died in place. But instead, the instant she was financially secure she gave the gang to her subordinates, and retired.

Except for the villains; who as far as she was concerned didn't die badly enough, she loved every character from Tarrant and Fraser in the first book to Danny Chavasse, who broke the shell she had created around her heart after being raped as a child. Nanny Murphy mentioned that she dreamed of finding such a man, someone who would love her as who and what she was, even if like Danny he later wandered out of her life again.

She was even amused when things went wrong; such as rescuing a woman from an abusive relationship only to discover that she had been bothered more because her husband had other lovers than the physical abuse. Then giggled and clapped with delight when it happened again after a man died trying to rescue his wife from a harem she had been sold into, only to discover that the girl _liked_ being there. She had giggled for almost an hour when Giles Pennyfeather, one of Modesty's friends pointed out for the first time in that same story that he could tell she was angry because he noticed her butt cheeks tightened up. While the news seriously pissed her off, she let it slide as a good friend would.

When reading ahead, he noticed the very last story, where Modesty, and her faithful companion, and confidant Willie Garvin, both died saving two of their friends. He almost didn't read it to her, because after all, her favorite characters in her world were going to die. But she had learned how to work wonders on the computer, and when he came in with another series, she was adamant that she would hear the Cobra Trap tonight.

He looked at the girl now only weeks from her twelfth birthday, and explained gently that both were going to die. Her eyebrows beetled, her lips grew tight, then she leaned back, crossed her arms and said, 'Read it."

He had, and when he was done, she was silently crying. He wanted to hug her, to tell her it was only a story, but she climbed out of the bed, and for the first time since she had fallen asleep in his arms, she hugged him.

"I'm sorry there's no more." He told her, but her head shook in the negative against his neck.

"I'm not crying because they died. Modesty knew she was dying from a brain tumor, and didn't want to end her life in a hospital. She died the way she wanted to, just like she lived. And Willie couldn't accept a world without her, so his dying then was what he would have wanted. I'm crying because they both got what they wanted most in the whole world even in death."

Unlike a naturally born child, she didn't have a birthday, unless you counted the day she was decanted, which they did not know. Lori with her usual logic, had decided the day her parents were married as that day. That way they could all celebrate both together and alone. He had already arranged with Madeline about the gifts for Lori's birthday, and Maddie had agreed, so she bought what he had intended to buy, leaving him running frantically around not only the City of Grendel but half the bloody planet to find what he now intended.

At her birthday party after school, the kids began to arrive, the usual giggly girls, but four boys. To Lori at 11, a boy just meant they called her friend 'him'. She had oohed and ahhed over the other gifts, then finally there were only two boxes left. She opened her mother's first, expecting some dance videos she had hinted at. But instead there was a brand new Gi.

Like any child who got something they had not actually anticipated, she thanked her mother. Then she turned to the last. She had expected Robert to give her the Gi, she'd already been told that he was paying for her to start at Sensei Wu's dojo. Obviously if he was paying for that, he should have given the Gi to her. She had thought the box from him would be the videos, but it was way too heavy, and too big, it was 30 cm long, almost that wide, and fifteen deep. With trepidation, she cut the ribbon, shredded the paper, and carefully lifted the lid.

For a long moment, she stared at the contents, not even lifting it to show to the others. Then she set the box down, and leaped across the room to hug the man.

Only then did she show them all the statue of Modesty Blaise with Willie Garvin. The woman stood to the fore, dressed in camouflage gear, with a pistol on her hip, and the Kongo which was her primary hand to hand weapon in the left hand. Behind her; taller, but in a way dwarfed by her, Garvin was dressed in the same gear, and held an assault rifle. Under his open shirt, you could see the echeloned knives he always carried. Both faces had the same look; 'boy are you in trouble'. Beneath the statue were copies not only of the books, but the compiled comic strips as well.

When she said, "Thank you, daddy." He thought is life was complete. But ten months later, (they worked it out later; they had conceived on that same day) Maddie delivered twins. Afterward, looking in through the window where her new brother and sister lay, Robert heard her whisper.

"If anyone ever tries to hurt you, I will kill them. I promise."

While no one officially knew it, Bridie had a second function. She was a scout/recruiter for the Audubon Ballroom. Of course on Beowulf then, there were more Ballroom personnel locally than even Smoking Frog in the present day, but it was more akin to the military officer or noncom who found a junior killing prisoners, and chiding them that 'you don't do that' the first time it is noticed. When she reached maturity, Bridie had told them she wasn't suitable.

Oh she hated slavery with the same passion of every escaped slave, and thanks to her mother's teaching herself dexterity by learning how to manipulate playing cards with all of the skill of a professional gambler, Lori had learned to first throw cards as well as the ancient Magician the Great Thurston. When she had started training in the martial arts, she graduated to throwing anything she could pick up and could hit any target within range.

And with her father's assistance, she had mastered Akkido and Wushu, both of which were martial arts that worked not only with a smaller body to defeat larger opponents, but in the case of Wushu, used the natural gymnastic and dance ability she had shown, along with training in using any weapon she could pick up. So she could kill at any range from hand to hand to edged weapons, to shooting range right up to a sniper rifle.

She not had been rejected for that. She had been rejected because she was too focused on making sure her opponent died. While it may sound like an oxymoron, a well focused assassin whatever the range should be able to kill without becoming too engrossed in it. That was why an assassin was never trained in torture. When her contact had asked, Bridie had said, "oh she'll kill the mark. Then she'll gut him in the tub, and bathe in the blood afterward." She had grinned, "Or settle down to braising his liver, and having it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."

She had also been rejected when BSC had shown an interest for pretty much the same reason. She was a self sustaining engine of destruction with an on switch, and targeting systems with no governor. She wasn't suitable for the sub rosa war with Mesa.

The reports from both would have surprised their opposite numbers in being almost identical; she needed something to keep her focused and happy while she wasn't slaughtering off Mesa' minions in job lots. She needed a governor on that engine. Instead of the Navy, her prep school teacher suggested that she enroll in the Merchant Marine Academy.

She excelled as she had in everything she wanted in life. She was as focused as a laser when she put her mind to it. So at age 22 when she graduated, she was top of her class. For almost 10 years she served on the ships that sailed through the League and later through the Wormhole junction to Manticore and beyond.

Then she found what both agencies were looking for. She found something that would keep her centered and focused. She found Henry.


	4. Sailing Into Danger

For all of you that missed it, read the prolong article in the honoverse wiki. The pregnancy should have been almost 12 T months!

**Sailing into Danger**

Ruth stopped at the doughnut shop, and picked up three dozen. She made sure two boxes were all chocolate; chocolate filled, chocolate cake, chocolate iced. It wasn't far to the residence, and while Berry didn't know it, everyone who worked in this bakery were also working for the Institute. She had read all of the reports of the method Manticore believed was being used in the assassination of Ambassador Webster, and the attempted assassinations of both Lady Harrington and Berry herself, so one thing each of the employees went through every time they arrived or came back in from outside was a search. No thought controlled person was going to slip a bomb or poison in these boxes!

The guards on the entrance were meticulous in verifying her identity. The fastest way to get thrown off the brand new security detail was to assume that the bigwigs didn't want to be bothered with the process. In fact when they had to move fast, each of the members of Berry's cabinet had a simple code that changed once a week to let the guards know they honestly didn't have the time. Ruth for example this week would whistle a segment of a popular tune, the guard would speak the first words of the the song that went with it, and Ruth would complete the line.

Berry _being_ Berry would just breeze through. If it hadn't been for the murder of so many with a chemical weapon a couple of years earlier, she wouldn't have accepted what little security she did have. Where the Queens Own back home had a full up Regiment, Torch only had an understrength company. One of the men assigned today was one of the men sent as Ruth's own security detachment. The two who followed Ruth, Marcus Proctor and Sandra Chen rolled their eyes as she went through the process, blood sample (More to assure someone hadn't slipped a bioweapon into Ruth herself) retina scan, and DNA test, and at her fulminating look went through the process as well to continue on.

As she had commented to Lori, the 'cabinet meeting' was in the kitchen. In fact a reporter, when commenting on Berry's actions, always called them the 'Kitchen Cabinet'. She was second after Thandi to arrive. Of course, Thandi was always the first to arrive. She had that glow that told Ruth Victor was back in town, and the lazy grin said a good time had been had by them both. Without being asked, Thandi slid a cup of hot cocoa before her, and started to rummage in the first box. At her woebegone expression, Ruth relented and slid across one of the other boxes. Thandi picked up a chocolate cake, inhaled it, and sipped her coffee as Berry and Hugh arrived.

"So." Berry said brightly, was the evening...strenuous?" Thandi blushed, and they all laughed. Jeremy and WEB arrived, drinks were poured, the doughnuts attacked like a city wall. After the first two boxes were emptied the meeting officially began. Thandi slid across a pad. Berry picked it up, her face solemn.

"So we're ready."

"As we can be, Berry." Thandi replied getting more coffee. "We have enough crews to man two of the heavy cruisers, the transports, and a frigate. But that was by stripping every loaner from the rest. Until the new LACs are up to speed, we're as naked as a baby on a changing table."

The girl looked across the table. "Ruth?"

"The count we have is just over 259,000, not counting any Seccies that are there. If need be the LACs can be scuttled, that gives us enough lift for about half a million."

"How soon will the LACs be up to speed?"

Thandi cocked her head. "Admiral Brown has only had them to work with for just under a month. Maybe another two or three weeks. But that's just working up. They won't have all the skills that Mantie Squadron has." She looked at Ruth. "No offense."

"None taken." The arrival in the last month of not only the four CLACs being delivered from Sidemore and the three Merchant Cruisers with their loads of pods had made them a much tougher nut to crack. The ability to use the newest Manticoran Alliance recon drones had made them less fumble fingered, though none of the Sollie ships, nor the old PNES ships could do more than access the recon drones; neither polity had developed the direct communication systems built into the frigates, so while they could see what they faced more rapidly than their possible enemies, they still didn't have the coordination an Alliance light task group would have.

"All right." Berry looked at Ruth. Technically, as a civilian, and 'only' the head of intelligence, she was junior. But she had always asked Ruth first. "Go, or no go."

"Go. It will not only hit Manpower where they live, it will show the Galaxy that we're not playing around any more."

"Thandi?"

"Go. Even with the numbers, it's just my boys and girls doing the same old same old. We're just using bigger hammers this time."

"Jeremy?"

"We have to make every op bigger and nastier than the last." He said. While he looked like a cheerful munchkin, he was arguably one of the deadliest people in the room. For decades he had orchestrated the Audubon Ballroom's operations across all of human space, even to Midgard, which was the hardest to reach. "Not only go, but why are we waiting?"

Berry looked finally to WEB. "Well?"

He looked back. "I am reminded of the famous quote from the original John Brown. 'Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!'." He looked to Jeremy. "In this even we are agreed."

Again Berry looked to Ruth. While her connection to the military was slight, Ruth had been the one to assure that any operational code names would not forewarn the enemy. She had pointed at the period in the late 20th early 21st century CE when the Old United States had chosen code names more for public consumption than for operational security, starting with Eagle's Claw in the late 70s right up to Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in the first part of the second millennium CE. "What are we calling this one?"

Ruth pulled out her dictionary. Rather than a standard English dictionary, she had added every foreign word ever used in books, spoken or video during all of history from Shakespeare to the modern day. She hit the button that would automatically scan and choose a word at random. She looked, hissed in disgust and hit the button again.

"Problem?" Jeremy asked mildly.

"Yes. But I think it's a glitch in the randomization program itself." Ruth replied. "Ah, Battlement."

"What was the first word?" Berry asked. Both of her questioners had been a little too...nonchalant.

"What did you do, Jeremy."

"I?" He gave that overly theatrical look he did when he was pulling someone's leg. "Pray, what ever would I have done?"

"Don't play innocent with me, Jeremy. You don't do innocent that well."

"But I am innocent! No one, even someone as devoted to his monarch's whim as I would dare to set your program so that the first word was always a curse word!" He started to reach for the sole remaining box of doughnuts, but Berry grabbed it and pulled it out of his reach.

"Snitches can buy their own doughnuts." Berry said, then looked surprised when Ruth snagged the box and dragged it out of _her_ reach.

"The same goes for sneaky people who want others to curse as much as they used to."

They all looked at each other, then laughed. Ruth sipped her cocoa. "I didn't figure it out until you tried the innocent crap. I just dumped it because I didn't know how to pronounce it. I don't even know what Hooyesos means." She said.

She still wasn't sure, even when everyone but her and Berry started laughing.

**Homecoming**

_Jael_ came out of the wormhole, the energy turning her sails into a sight that always made viewers stare in awe. As the energy bleed died, they formed into her wedge, and the small vessel moved toward Beowulf. Lori sighed in pleasure. It had been several years, and she always liked coming home, though now this ship was more her home than any planet.

"Henry, thank Terminus control. Then contact the Constabulary about our... passengers."

"Right, skipper." He turned to the panel. He was no more the communications officer than Sean was the helmsman. Everyone was cross trained to handle all of the stations, and he just happened to have the watch.

"Sean, best speed to the Constabulary station."

The ship pirouetted, and charged forward with the cheeky disdain all dispatch boats had for more lumbering ships. As they passed through the exit lane, there was a flash as a 7.5 megaton _Argonaut_ class merchantman of the Hauptmann Cartel followed.

Arrival was always busy. They had to contact Beowulf Approach Control, verify their identity (Beowulf sort of let her slide with her tendency to change her ship's name) contact the local banks to verify that payment would be made for necessities, just fuel and food this trip and of course her family. She didn't bother to ask if they would come to see her; all they wanted to know was what station. She told them she had to stop at the Constabulary station, but would be at Dragonship station afterward.

Instead of docking, the boat halted 100 kilometers from the Constabulary station, and they took off the prisoners. Then the boat moved the 30 degrees from the station to Dragonship station, the third largest station of the planet. She snubbed up against the docking clamps, and the boarding tube came across.

Thanks to the security arrangements, her crew could all get off the boat. As it was the three Ballroom members needed some down time. Lori sighed, They had been with her for almost five years, team mates that had fought and bled side by side, yet they were not her family as the others were. Perhaps they would become such in time. But she had always been leery of easy friendships. She motioned, and one by one they dove into the tube. She waited until it was clear, and followed.

The station had dragons at every docking bay, and the Blue dragon the Japanese called Shokaku and the Chinese called Meng Zhang graced this one. She had barely landed when suddenly she was snatched up into a bear hug. "Ollie, put me down before I kick you in the balls." She growled.

The large man laughed, setting her down to ruffle her hair. Oliver Pettigrew, her younger brother smiled down. "Hello, sis." Before he could say anything else Lorelei, his twin moved around him to give her a hug. She sighed. They were both 32, and she _still_ looked like their younger sister. They were a study in contrasts. Same hair and eyes, features merely more delicate in her sister's face. But Oscar was a thoracic surgeon at Grendal's Sister's of Mercy Hospital, and Lorelei a lieutenant commander in the Navy.

Her mother moved forward, looking the same as she had all of those years ago, behind her father came, and she was again buried in hugs. She felt tears start in her eyes. She always felt like she was tearing her heart out when she left. But she had seen the stars, and had a reason to be out there.

"How long are you going to be here?" Robert asked.

"Three, four days." She looked her father in the eye. "The Institute on Torch is going to make a raid on a Sex-slave meeting. Two of my sisters from other batches are there. I want to be back in Torch when they arrive." Both of her parents looked sad. So far, she had found only one of her actual 'sisters', though eight others had been rescued or escaped. Of the number, two were now citizens of Torch.

"Don't expect too much." Robert told her. She gave him a sad smile.

"I only want them free, daddy. You know why." he returned her smile and nodded.

When she was nine, old enough to understand, they had explained what had been done and why. Some researcher working for Mesa had created her, and she wasn't alone. The designation was easy to explain, if you didn't think about the fact that it was a human being. The first was the type designation C line, a sex slave, type 21a meaning a Eurasian female, The lot number 51 a specification for age with 7 determining weight and bust size, so she would always have what some guys called 'tiny tits' until she had children, if any. Finally, the batch number 5-9, meaning she was the fifth of the nine started in the incubation chamber at the same time.

The designation didn't mean all of them were identical. No geneticist could guarantee that all of the type 21s would have exactly the same hair, eyes and faces in every batch. There was too much variation in the human genome for that. But the batch number... She had eight sisters of the same batch.

_Identical_ sisters.

For a while her parents were sure they would lose her. She stopped eating, which was alarming. But she also began to draw. Like a lot of young children, she drew her family life. At the time there was only her and her parents, but her pictures had nine small figures, holding hands like paper dolls with the two larger ones behind them. When asked she would say 'me and my sisters'. Instead of correcting her, it was reported to Bridie.

She had nightmares as expected, but knowing there were others exactly like her still being tormented preyed on her mind. She would begin a dream with one of those Mesan trainers pinning her down. Feel her violation as if it were happening at that moment, then suddenly she was standing to the side, untouched. But before her copy of herself mewled in pain, begging the men to stop. Worse yet, they begged her to free them as if she had that power. The dreams rampaged from nine to puberty, and the girls in them aged as she did, so it began with her being abused, then them.

Medication was prescribed, not to help her sleep, but to break the nightmare chain. Finally at fourteen they slowly faded, though even today she suffered them occasionally.

She had problems in school, but it was more because she would be first generation Prolong, while all of the others in her classes were second or third generation. At 13 she went through puberty, developed breasts, and for a while, was actually taller than her fellow students, though she never stood taller than 135 centimeters. Over the next two years, when they went through their arrested puberty, she was suddenly the smallest again.

She loathed cute names because every possible endearment a man might use for his lover had, at one time or another, been used by her tormentors; if only because they were talking about her where she could hear. One time in the second grade she had leaped on a boy who was half a meter taller, ramming what was still called Playdoh into his mouth and nose as she screamed, 'Don't call me Little Rose!"

Her friends of either sex found other names, and all of them were based on things that were small but aggressive. So by the time she reached prep school at 15, she had nicknames like Pit-bull, Wolverine, or Treecat. But one cutesy nickname did survive. When she had just entered prep school, some friends (Again mixed sexually) had come over to the house, and one had brought a copy of an ancient Anime called Azumanga Daioh.

The main character was a girl in what used to be called Junior High School who was such a genius, she had been promoted into what was then called high school. An 11 year old with fellow students already five years older than her. They had taken to calling her Chiyo-chan, which in Japanese is how you talk to friends, but is also a diminutive. Thomas Chan pointed. "You know, in a couple of years, that's going to be you."

"Don't remind me."

But as the show went on, the only people who ever patronized the young star were her teacher (Who pretty much patronized everyone) and one student when she reached her second year. That time she chased him down, berated him, told him she was _his_ senior, and he had better address her as 'Senior' Mihama.

So Thomas was allowed to call her Chiyo-chan, but no one else.

Her mind focused as it always did in study, and while no one, not even her parents knew it, she remembered her 'sisters'. Part of her mind focused on finding those tormented souls and freeing them. But she knew by herself she could never succeed in freeing even one of them.

Then with a smooth beckon, the Universe started giving her what she needed to succeed.

**The Cook**

The good ship _Heorot_, a 4 megaton freighter listed as belonging to Swenchan Lines of Beowulf had stopped at Terra to deliver her cargo before going on to swing through the Core. Her captain Malcolm Kee relaxed as the docking tubes crossed. The hatch to the bridge opened, and heels clicked firmly. "Manifest of what is available to pick up, skipper."

"Thank you, Pettiigrew." He took the cargo pad, and for a moment his eyes flicked to look at her. She was trim, sleek, with a thoughtful look on her face. He had never dealt with a better cargo officer. She was second mate; surprising because usually the chief engineer held that post. But she was competent not only in cargo but bridge stations as well. But she had problems, and those were all linked to that competence.

"Looks good, Lori."

"We do have one problem. The chief cook we picked up before leaving home is... inadequate, and his assistant Landry means well, but has trouble boiling water." He snorted. Actually the cook wasn't too bad, once you got past his attitude. But he was almost all attitude. As good as he thought he was, he should have been working at a fine restaurant where attitude was appreciated, not on a ship with only fifty odd people to try his recipes on. Telling the crew they could cook their own damn food if they complained was not the way to get along. Telling the second officer that he would buy his supplies from suppliers he chose personally had been worse. Especially when they were paying more with no change in quality.

It probably bothered Lori the most. On the one occasion when he had visited her family in Grendel, Madeline Pettigrew had turned out something worthy of the Cordon Bleu; this after a full day as Chief of Surgery at Benton-Ramirez y Chou Memorial. Bashing together a masterpiece meal just because she never did anything half way.

"What has he done this time."

"Remember the steaks your friend in _Legacy_ sent over?" Of course he did! His friend had gone on a trip to the Meyers Sector, and met a captain from a Rembrandt Trade Union ship. While smaller (about 2 megatons) than the more modern ships, they did carry some hefty cargoes, and like any good Trade Union captain, he had been looking to find contacts to merchant houses on the more reputable member planets. When it came to trade, there were few planets more reputable than Beowulf.

They had begun talking about what they could trade, and the prospects were bleak. The local OFS governor in Meyers had allowed the multi-stellars deeper into the League to have the Meyers Sector listed as a transhipment point rather than just another place to stop at before going on, claiming that the RTU ships were unsafe under the Solar Leagues convoluted Merchant Code. But as people had said (and proved) the Solarian Merchant Code was like the old Christian Bible. By picking and choosing, then using what you found out of context, you could find justification for everything from genocide, the old slave trade to the Nazi Death camps.

While intended as a safety regulation against systems that had just discovered the impeller and sail drive, what it did was throw the RTU into a situation where they hauled cargo to Meyers, and those same multi-stellars could buy it at the prices they wanted instead of what it was worth. Having sampled _Kelsenbrau_ beer from Dresden back home, he understood. They were being paid enough to make it profitable only if compared to shipping it to another Talbot Cluster planet, then the multi-stellars were selling it on, say Beowulf, at a 500% profit. So the money was going to them, rather than the suppliers or the RTU. The same deal had always been offered, right back to when the British had been selling cheap copper cooking pots that the Native Americans could not make for furs.

In fact the RTU had almost decided to say to hell with dealing with the League at all. Of course when that happened OFS would probably move in 'for their own good' to assure that the multi-stellars kept their monopoly.

The RTU captain, instead of merely itemizing his cargo, took the Beowulfan aboard and showed it to him. Among that cargo was almost a megaton of beef from Montana. They were already known for some of the best beef in the galaxy, and a dinner on Beowulf with a single quarter kilo steak from Montana cost half a week's salary for a merchant ship captain.

He had taken the RTU skipper to the local Beowulf trade legation, and the local rep had been very interested. He had promised to notify the government of their home of the offer, and gave a tentative approval to purchasing the entire cargo, sight unseen. Instead of one multi-stellar just making a flat offer, it came to a bidding war that drove the price up to where it was actually worth what that horrendous mark up covered. Oh the price of that steak hadn't dropped for the consumer, yet. But at least the new Beowulfan middleman wasn't going to be raking in exorbitant profits.

The RTU captain was so happy, he had given that captain a precious gift; a ton of that same beef. That captain had met Kee, and fifteen kilos of it arrived aboard ship for him to give to his crew. Enough for two steak dinners each.

Having dealt with a steak charred almost to charcoal, he sighed. Lori had waited until all of that memory had flashed across his mind before answering. "Enough of the crew complained about the last time, so he has already informed them that he was going to serve the next meal, which is again supposed to be steak, raw. If they want it cooked, they are going to have to _ask_ him to cook it."

The captain sighed. He had thought the verbal warning, then the written reprimand would change the idiots mind. Well, sobeit. "Tell him we're revoking his contract, and he can either find another ship to take him home, or he can pay his way back aboard here."

"Yes, sir." She didn't show it, but he knew she was very satisfied with that. "If I may, Captain..."

"Yes?" He knew that tone.

"I was going to wait until after the meal." He looked at her in shock. She was going to make her fifty odd shipmates have to _beg_? She smiled. "Do you know how hard it is to find a cook willing to let you eat the meat raw? After eating Kitfo (raw ground beef marinated in a very spicy chili powder made from mīṭmīṭā and niter kibbeh) and steak tartare, I have always wanted to try raw steak."

He shuddered. In his family a steak was properly sanctified to the culinary gods by cooking, not something that might get better if you didn't eat it!

"Besides, between Rating Landry and myself, we can make sure everyone gets something properly cooked."

_Ah_. He sighed. "Number Two, how long have you been aboard this ship under my command?"

"Seven years, eight months, Captain." He was almost surprised she hadn't itemized it down to the day hour and minute.

He nodded. "And in that time, how much leave time have you accumulated?"

She didn't even pause. "At three T weeks per year, 23 weeks, two days, sir."

"And how many of those _days_ have you actually spent not on duty?" He asked, the trap closing. He looked up mildly. She had that ice maiden face on; the one she used on suppliers who tried to give her garbage when she requested supplies or parts.

"Sir what leave I take-" He held up his hand.

"Number Two, you are very good at your job. The ship runs like a top, and profits are better since you began judging what we buy. But I want it to last that way until I am too old to command, and I can't do that if you work yourself into a psychotic episode." He raised his hand as she started to speak. "I am captain, Lori. So as the captain, I am giving an order. You will take two days here as we offload. I know your assistant can handle the offloading, and you can look over what we are picking up here.

"From this point on, you will take two days in every port we stop at. Not one day, not a week unless you really want to use the time and we have it to lay over. It is either that, or I am going to send you back to Beowulf, and you will take every minute of every one of those weeks with your mother stuffing you like a turkey."

He looked at her. He had never seen that look on her face; like a beached fish gasping on the shore. "Lori, do you want a chair like this some day?" He tapped the one he sat in. She nodded. "Then you have to learn to take time for something other than work. Of the seven people who took command the same year I did, only I am still in command. They did not learn what I am trying to teach you.

"So; you may cook today for our crew. But the instant you have finished, you will leave cleaning up to the assistants. You will go onto the station, check with the Seaman's union about a suitable replacement, then you will have a drink and relax. I will allow you to get away with only one day here. But if you do not spend at least two days at every other port between here and home, you will spend every minute of your leave time on Beowulf before you are allowed on board any ship in the line." He smiled gently. "And as the number three captain in the line, you might say I speak with the chairman's voice in this." He handed her the pad back. "Dismissed, Number Two."

She walked out, but she really wanted to sulk. She spent time off. When she was off duty she would read tech manuals, her ever growing collection of fiction from Earth's 19th and 20th centuries CE. She even spent hours watching her also expanding collection of ancient Japanese Anime. In fact she had just finished the fifth season of one called Cat Planet Cuties.

But she had been given an order, and she'd obey it.

The passageway outside the mess hall was empty, but from the shouting, she knew the mess hall wasn't. She halted in the hatch, surveying the ten hands that were on the first shore leave rotation of the twenty given that leave standing with trays in hand, glaring at the steam table that held nothing but raw meat and cooked vegetables, and smiled inwardly.

Brewster Cogburn was raising his tray, probably to smash it in on the head of Simon Reese the cook when her voice cut through the din. "Stand fast!" Everyone in the crew knew her; she could flay you an centimeter at a time with just her words and tone. They froze, and began to slowly stand more regularly. She walked over, taking a tray, and her look moved Cogburn aside. She walked over, held it out. Reese stood there, smug. She loved bringing the hammer down, especially someone who wasn't from Beowulf, or hadn't bothered to read the contract. He thought he had all the aces, but there were differences between the Sollie Merchant Code and the Beowulf one; and he didn't even have a low pair.

"Are you going to give me a steak? Of am I supposed to just stand here?"

"How do you want to have it cooked?"

"Just as it is, Reese." He stared at her, some of the confidence leaking away. After all if an officer had asked him to cook her steak, the crew would fall into line. "Sometime today, Mr. Reese. I have places to go, and things to do." He picked up one of the slabs of raw meat, setting it on her tray. In silence she moved on, picking a spoon of mashed potatoes, some steamed broccoli and cauliflower (One thing he couldn't screw up), her flatware and a cup of tea from the samovar before walking to a table. All in a perfect silence. She sat, flipping her napkin, and disdaining the sauces except for the melted cheese on the vegetables, merely salting and peppering Before cutting into the meat.

"I know you will all be pleased to hear that the first stop today for me will be at the Seaman's Union. It seems I have to hire a new cook." There was a growl of pleasure at that. As the one responsible for buying the food, she had made it a habit to eat in the crew mess every week. She was also the one people complained to first if it wasn't up to what she considered at least par. She didn't use her own mother's cooking when she did, or she would have had to hire her mother for the job. In the four months Reese had been aboard; joining the ship out of Cassiday Sector, there had been more complaints than complements.

"I could use an assistant-"

"I am not hiring an assistant. I am hiring a replacement." Actually with a touch of the cheese sauce, the raw steak wasn't that bad.

"You can't do that." His voice was firm, and she knew if she looked he would have been smug. "I'll protest to the Union. You can't just fire me-"

"Oh but I can." Yes, the piquant cheese was just the thing.

"Under the Solarian Merchant Marine Union Code, you can't."

She turned, smiling sliightly. "But you joined this ship and signed not a Solarian Contract, but one under the _Beowulf_ Merchant Marine Union Code. Under Paragraph 15, section four, 'Termination for cause', and I quote, 'Any crewman or officer who has not fulfilled his duties to the letter is to be given one verbal reprimand, one written reprimand, and if their actions show that they have not learned, they can be terminated as unfit'.

"Before you decide that is not the case, paragraph 9, section eleven, sub section 6, 'any crewman who causes dissension in a crew is to be considered as not fulfilling his duties under Paragraph 15'." She stood slowly. "You are dismissed. You will pack your gear, and get off this deck, or I will start charging you as a passenger."

"Only the captain can dismiss me!"

"I am carrying out Captain Kee's instructions."

"Why should I believe an underage bitch who got her rate by sleeping with the Captain!"

"Stand Fast!" She shouted as the crewmen started toward him. "You have a choice here, Reese. You can leave quietly, or I will ask for volunteers to throw your worthless ass down the docking tube. From what I can see just here, I might have to hold a lottery of the volunteers."

"You-"

"Silence." The compartment fell silent as Captain Kee walked in. "Reese, Lieutenant Pettigrew is following my instructions. And since you're obviously too stupid to see that you have lost, it makes it that much simpler." He pointed at two of the men going on shore leave, both stevedores who looked as if they also lifted weights in their off time. "You two will take our ex-cook down to the docking tube. If her resists, you are ordered to use all force necessary to persuade him. That does not give you the right to strike him except in self defense, and there will be no falling down ladders as you do. You," he motioned to another, "will pack his gear. He is not allowed to take anything her did not bring aboard or buy from personal funds during his time aboard. I will have Pettigrew cut your last check, and hand carry my personal reprimand with all information needed including all citations under the Beowulf Code to the Union."

He stepped closer. "And before you think the Sollie Code will save your narrow little ass, I can count the times the Sollie Code won out over ours in all of the League's history on the fingers of one hand. So file your protest, because you could use it for toilet paper with more efficiency." He looked around. "Gentlemen, I believe I gave you orders."

"And I will have a properly prepared meal ready for you three when you get back." Lori said. "The first one since this... thing came aboard."

An hour later she had hoped the captain had forgotten. But the Ensign who was not only watch officer but also Communications came down to the galley where she was elbow deep in the sink washing dishes to reaffirm the orders. So she looked at herself in the mirror, sighing. The Swenchan Lines Uniform of burgundy with silver trim looked good on her, though she had always had have them tailored rather than off the rack, even if that was against regulations. She put on the burgundy Beret, and marched down to the docking tube.

She came into bedlam in the Sollie Merchant Union's hall. Word of the firing had reached them before she arrived, but she merely handed over the documentation along with Reese's last check, and asked if they had any cooks listed at the present. Of course the Union said they didn't. And she merely nodded as she walked out. The biggest problem Beowulf had in dealing with the Solarian Union was that everyone accrued seniority from when they joined it, rather than when they had last served aboard a ship. That meant you could end up with a first generation Prolong crewman over a hundred, who had last served half a century ago. Worse yet, the rules about hiring and firing were so convoluted that the fastest way to fire someone was to have an accident where they died aboard.

"Hey!" She looked at one of the men who merely hung out near the Union. She walked over to him as he dropped his voice to a whisper. "You're looking for a cook?"

She assumed he was going to offer his own services, so she merely nodded. "There's a guy fresh in from the Verge, Henry something or other. He left his last ship and the Union Blacklisted him. He's supposed to be all right, but I haven't eaten any meals he has prepared."

"Why was he Blacklisted?"

"He joined a Jessyk Combine ship out on the Verge just as a wiper," the lowest possible rating; a wiper usually scrubbed the deck because he wasn't qualified for anything else. "But when he got here, he was thrown off and nobody was saying why. So the skipper protested to the Union, refused to pay him his last check, and got the Union to Blacklist him last week."

The fact that he'd served on a Mesan ship, and one that probably routinely carried slaves wasn't a bell ringer if you wanted to work on a reputable line. But unless she wanted to cook herself until their next port of call, she would have to at least talk to the man. "Do you know where he is?"

The man pasted on what he thought was a crafty look. She pulled out a bill, a 10 Credit note. He started to snatch it, but she flicked it back so he missed. "For location and his last name. And if I find you've lied..."

"Not going to lie. Last name's DuChamp. He's from New Dijon. He's over at the Nightlight near docking bay 42 looking for a ship out."

It wasn't that far from the ship. But it was in the area usually reserved for ships from the Verge or the outer Shell. So the patrons were a little on the rough side. She handed him the bill, and took the station tram. Many Solarian citizens seemed to think anyone outside the League was something not much above the squabbling nations of 20th century CE, beating each other over the head with stone axes. But she was from Beowulf, and their merchant ships went as far as Midgard and through not only the League, but beyond the Verge itself.

Her father had once likened those people beyond the League's borders without the same technology as if they were the 16th Century CE compared to the 21st. Her father had told her of a comment by Queen Elizabeth the First in that earlier era, something she had said to her assembled Parliament, 'I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom'. Once they got to the point of understanding that technology was neither magic nor witchcraft, they would have settled in without a bobble.

But of course some of them seemed to think living beyond the frontier meant they had to act like barbarians. So she was ready for anything. The Nightlight reminded her of a bar on one of the stations in the Verge where the OFS held sway. It was dimly lit, and off to one side she saw a small kitchen. She walked across the room to the bar. The bartender looked up, taking in the neat uniform. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

"I'm looking for someone. Henry Duchamp."

"He's in the kitchen." He cocked his head. "You off a ship?"

"Yes, Swenchan Lines, _Heorot_ out of Beowulf."

"Hope you can use him." The man turned. "He's a hell of a cook, but he's like having one of the old British Nobility working in the scullery. Do you drink Lieutenant?"

"Yes, I do."

"Any preference?"

"I've always wanted to try Single Malt T Scotch, but this is my first trip to the system."

He turned, setting down a glass. "Water? Ice?"

"My father always told me to freeze a bottle so you don't need ice, and don't add water because it's a shame to dilute any whiskey."

He grinned, reaching down, then came up with a bottle. "Bottled on the island of Islay. Laiphroag. One of the best Scotch whiskeys bottled anywhere." He poured a generous tot, setting the bottle on the bar. "On the house. And if you take him, I'll give you the rest of this bottle."

She grinned, picking up the drink. "I might take him just for that. But I expect to pay for it. No arguments." She sipped it. "This is worth paying for." She motioned with the drink. "Should I just go back? Or do you want to call him?"

"I'll get him for you." He looked. "Table back there is free."

She walked back, setting the drink on the table before she removed her beret. She wasn't sure if the man was buttering her bread for her or not. She sat, sipping the drink.

The man who came from the back was old. He was obviously first generation Prolong, and from the look, though he looked more like sixty than his seventies or eighties. He brought a plate with him, setting it down. "Mister Duchamp?"

"Yes, lieutenant."

"Did the barkeep tell you why I am here?"

"He said you're off a Beowulf Freighter, looking for a cook." He motioned. "I'd made some Stroganoff. I thought it would show my bone fides better than just listing them." She looked at the sample portion, picked up the fork, and tried it.

She motioned for him to sit. "All right, you can cook. There is only one thing I can think of that might poison the well." She stopped talking as the bartender delivered a shot of whiskey for Henry, along with the bottle of scotch. "He seems to like you."

"Sid knows why I was dumped by Jessyk." His face grew cold. "He's also the only one who would believe me."

She leaned back. "Try me."

He sighed. "I found out that the Captain's 'daughter' was a genetic slave. Instead of being smart and reporting him, I confronted him. After five of his men tried to beat the stuffing out of me, the two still able to stand threw me off the ship with a claim that they had caught me pilfering lockers."

"You told the Union."

"Of course I did." He made the fingers rubbing together that still meant money. "He paid them off." He saw the look on her face. "Never mind-"

She raised her hand, leaning forward, and sticking out her tongue. He started back, then leaned forward. "Did she look anything like me?"

"No. Tall, blond, looked like she was Northern Italian." She looked confused. "Or how they looked back in the day."

"C-32 series." She bit out. At his look she shrugged. "I have a personal interest, as you no doubt realize now." She drained the glass. "As soon as you sign the contract under the Beowulf Code, you're part of my crew. Get your gear, and report to docking bay 39. Tell them to call me."

He smiled. "'Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul…Let them be as chaff before the wind, and let the angel of the Lord chase them'." At her confused look, he shrugged. "I spent some time in jail in the Silesian Confederacy with only a psalter to read." He looked confused. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Report aboard as soon as you can, we'll get you settled in before we load cargo." She tapped the bottle standing. "And bring this with you."

He picked up the bottle. "Can do. I'm standing in what I have. They wouldn't let me have my gear."

She started to tell him slop chest aboard could outfit him when she sensed a presence. A man almost two meters tall was standing, no swaying there. "I saw you stick out your tongue sweetie." He motioned, almost falling. "Besides, what's an old bastard like him going to do for you."

She took Henry's surprised hand. "Older men know so much more about sex." She purred.

For a moment, she thought that would be enough. "One of you whores should know a real man can pay more."

She sighed. "Darwin Awards time." She said, then set her hand on his shoulder. Then using that grip, she leaped. She pushed down with her hand, throwing herself upward, arms outstretched like a figure skater ready to do a spin, her legs clamping around his neck, then spun, her arms coming in like that same skater speeding up her spin, all within less than a second. He flipped forward from the torque, and only her hands slapping the deck and her thighs stopped his neck from breaking. She let him free, rolling to her feet. "Never call me whore. Or sweetie." She took her beret, setting it on her head. "Let's go, Henry."


	5. Impossible

**Counting the Cost**

Ruth sighed. The first lift of freed slaves had arrived from Battlement, and what she saw wasn't pretty. They had expected a quarter million, but the ships that had already arrived held more than half a million and there were almost a million more to be transported. They had been frantically loading the ships that had been captured at Good Time Station, but they weren't sure how many would be saved. Captain Gunter had told them that 400 of the Marines had volunteered to stay behind to delay the ships they knew were coming, and that bothered her even more. She understood the military accepted losses, but 400 citizens of her new home world dying to save people they didn't even know?

She knew that to the military, it was worth it, but she knew these people! She had greeted Judith Simonds when she arrived, watched Ravika Sukaragi spar with Thandi, one of the few who could match her speed and ferocity. She was forcibly reminded of the Queen's own squad that had died protecting her on the Wages of Sin Casino station in Erewhon. For some stupid spoiled child who wanted adventure. She had done everything she could to pay them back for that sacrifice. Some day, she would feel that she had paid them back, but it wasn't done yet.

It might have helped if they had useful skills- she stopped herself. When Berry and Jeremy had forged their alliance, there was nothing said about what the freed had been trained to do. She couldn't start picking and choosing who to save. She'd become as cold as the monsters they fought. She initialed the report, moving it to the outbox.

While you might think a land where you could be accepted as who and what you are is a dream, for a lot of people, just the idea it exists, even if you never see it, is sufficient.

Like the embattled nation known as Israel of two millennia ago, they also had an ace in the hole most forgot. Throughout human space there were _millions_ of genetic slaves that had not come home. Over a billion if you counted the Seccies of Mesa themselves. Instead they lived their lives as loyal citizens of their star nations.

And on occasion they passed snippets of information to the Institute on the side Even freed slaves living on Mesa were willing to help when it came to sticking a knife in the back of Manpower.

So sometimes gathering data was almost like a farmer walking into his own cornfield, and choosing ripe ears for his dinner.

What she didn't have a lot of, however, were analysts. The Audubon Ballroom had a number of analysts, but most had been grabbed by Jeremy X for his military intelligence arm, and others had been taken by the joint agency she called Shin Bet, which handled internal security, and one day would be the primary Police Force. The fifteen Ballroom analysts she had inherited were great operational men, but there had been none who could handle the strategic end. They were the 'target going here, this unit assigned, eliminate the Scorpions type'.

But in a mixture only possible here on Torch, she had connections with Manticore, Erewhon, Haven, Beowulf's Biological Survey Corps and even some in the Myers sector's ONI and OFS's Long View agency. She also had a premier analyst in the newly arrived Jinhua Kiel of the Anderman Empire, though she shared the take from her with Jeremy. And Manticore, and the Empire, and Haven. Anyone else? Yeah, Beowulf. Face it, when it came to allies, her agency leaked like a sieve. And until she had analysts to whom her agency was their primary allegiance, it would be so.

A good analyst is rare. It was someone who did their crossword puzzles in ink, and never had to erase a wrong answer. They don't allow their own egos to get involved, because that was where you failed. She had studied not only intelligence agencies, but also when they went horribly wrong. For example, Japanese Naval intelligence had failed three times before and during the Battle of Midway alone. They had assumed that since they were Japanese, they were naturally smarter than the Americans, so they rarely changed their codes. This meant that the Americans, who were smarter than they had thought were routinely breaking those codes and in effect were reading the signals faster than the Japanese who were decoding them for their recipients.

They had assumed they knew who would command if Midway was attacked, but Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey had entered the hospital right before the battle because of Dermatitis. They knew who the next three most likely commanders might be, but a man Halsey had chosen, Ray Spruance had been put in command at Halsey's insistence. A more cautious man, Spruance didn't charge in as Halsey would have. He waited until he knew where his enemy was, then struck with everything at his command.

Last they had assumed that since they built it, their equipment would work flawlessly. Yet one scout aircraft left late because of an engine problem, then when that aircraft spotted the American carriers, the radio malfunctioned, so the Japanese didn't know about the fleet until that plane returned, causing them to shift from a land bombing mission to a shipping strike in a hurry, meaning they still had tons of ordinance laying on the hangar deck when American bombers struck, causing the destruction of three carriers.

In another instance, Admiral Stansfield Turner, a proponent of Satellite reconnaissance had over 800 'ethnically placed' agents terminated on the grounds that since they were descendants of people of the nations they were assigned to, they were not really Americans, even if they were all second or third Generation Americans. By doing so, he was able to fund the first of the Keyhole series of satellites. Then less than three years later, when asked by the seated President what the Russians were doing on the Afghan border, he didn't know. Of course all of the agents that could have answered the question were among those fired...

What she did have was not too bad. But no head of intelligence ever had enough analysts. A good analyst is worth their weight in whatever you wanted to name.

There was a knock on her door, and she looked up. "Come." The door opened and her secretary Jason X walked in, laying a message ship in it's folder on her desk.

"The most recent report from Smoking Frog." He said.

She slipped it in her reader, leaning forward. She made some notations. "Send it down to Ms Stavrakas."

**The Tech Weenie**

Helena Stavrakas was an anomaly in the modern age. A woman with an obviously Greek name that actually looked as if she had been born in Athens. She parked her ground car, grabbed her travel mug of local Fireplant leaf tea, stuffed the last doughnut from the box in her mouth, and only then opened the door. She was early, but in an ancient term, she was anal retentive about that.

She nudged the door closed with her well rounded hip, then strode toward what once had been the Mesa Extension University. Back when Manpower had run the planet, they had opened this campus for the college level students of the overseers. When the Night Of Rage had occurred, the slaves had left the campus intact, even allowed the students to flee. But the professors had died in an orgiastic blaze of righteous fury. One day soon it would be the first real university the planet possessed. But even years after that horror, there were not enough college level teachers yet to open a true university again.

At the moment, only one of those buildings was in use. She strode toward what had once been the Admin building, and now housed the Institute; Torch's nascent Intelligence organization.

She shifted the doughnut, and it was gone as she opened the door and walked in. David Questor, the head of security looked up, and motioned. She changed direction like a pool ball that had been clipped by his gentle touch. He lifted a chip case. "The Maven sent this down for you."

She took it, and her eyes widened as he lifted a paper bag onto the counter. "And this is for that miniature black hole you carry around."

"It's not a black hole." She considered hiding it, but then most of the genetic slaves Manpower had created were not unlike her. "My parents were from Meyerdahl. I'm a Genie."

"Ah. And I thought you just liked to eat." He pushed the bag toward her. "So this will keep you alive until lunch."

She laughed, picking up the bag. Then she went to her basement floor office. The building was three levels tall, and they were already building a new facility for when the University reopened next year. But like any hierarchy, the lower in the building you were, the lower your status. Then again, as a junior analyst from Sphinx, Helena was used to that. She had been a whiz at visual analysis, but since she had not been 'politically correct' back when Janacek had run the Admiralty, she had been sent here.

Of course, when the Queen orders ONI to supply an analyst to their 'good ally Torch', even that government had responded. But that didn't mean you sent your best, even if best was a skewed definition. So the analyst who had identified the _Gladiator_ Class cruisers after Tiberian was sent. Not because she was the best, just the best of those thought unfit.

She keyed in her door code, and pushed it aside as she walked toward the desk. She tapped the computer access, leaning over to display her retinal pattern to the scanner. The one thing she wasn't used to was the security arrangements the Institute had. Every different section was required to get a supervisor's permission to transmit data between them. The Maven, as Director Winton had taken to calling herself had waxed lyrical about a man back in pre Diaspora days named Kim Philby, and how he had gutted the intelligence network he had been part of in service to an enemy nation because they didn't use the compartmentalization they had.

She set the chip folder and bag down, bringing up her system. With one hand she slid the chip into the reader slot, and with the other she peeked into the bag. Pierogi, and Latkes! A dozen each! The sweet man had found her favorite food! "Oh, David, I will have to be _very_ friendly to you later." She whispered, stuffing one of the baked beef and potato pies into her mouth.

The chip's index came up, and she began going through the files. Most were unimportant, though no Intelligence organization considered it so, because negative data was just as important as positive. She found one file, opening it. She remembered the name Bardasano from somewhere,wait, Isabel Bardasano, one of the Cadet members of the Jessyk Combine's board of directors, originally supposed to be one of the 'information analysis and retrieval' department's top ten; read professional corporate spy and wet work officer. But that was a cover since Lembeck, head of that department had never been in her chain of command according to reports from agents in place. It was like having an Internal security officer who didn't work in that department. Someone on the board had handled her over Lembeck's head, but who? Seemed the woman had been reported killed in the _first_ explosion set off at Green Pines when Jack McBryde had covered the escape of Anton Zilwicki's team on Mesa. In fact Zilwicki was the one who had reported her death. According to the Newsies on Mesa, she had been listed as killed in the second blast.

This Bardasano worked for Jessyk Combine, though why she was in what MacBryde had labeled a super secret enclave of something called the Alignment was unclear. An accountant (Who was a Seccie; a descendant of slaves, and therefore a second class citizen of the planet) in payroll and lodging had been sent to itemize her possessions so the apartment she had lived in could be reused. He had used his access (And authorizations he was not supposed to have) to carefully toss the place first. He had used the command override he had to open her personal safe, copying the file chips inside it.

Moments after he had closed the safe, a team had arrived with Jessyk Combine security credentials, made him step outside, and they had left moments later. When he checked the now gaping safe he found it empty. But the man was a wizard at his job because he had a photographic memory, and he had recognized the two men leading the Security officers, and neither officially worked for Jessyk. In fact one was supposed to be a member of the Mesan Government internal security forces, and the other worked for Olivander Corporation, which was another subsidiary of Manpower. She tut-tutted to herself. There was an old saying that there were old pilots, and bold ones, but no old bold ones. Maybe this man needed to extend that logic to secret agents. But his chutzpah had delivered this.

One of those files was just a list of words. As someone who had worked in intelligence for almost a decade, she recognized it as a series of code words. Pretty much worthless if you didn't have access to a computer the files were in. But perhaps they could open some of those files captured during the Liberation.

Even though she didn't expect anything from the attempt, she began using them against the still sealed files she had from below. Of course she couldn't do this in a global method. So it was begin up a file, insert a code word, when it didn't open the file, go to the next. It took hours. She had just stuffed the ninth Pierogi into her mouth to follow the last Latkes when one file opened. She looked through it. Just picnic photos from someone who had been to an island. Nice beach... Her mouth stopped chewing, then she carefully removed the half eaten pastry and swallowed. She had seen that beach, and the island in the distance somewhere, and recently. For a long moment, she stared at the picture, then she picked up her phone, dialing a number from memory.

"H'llo?" the voice on the other end answered.

"Solange, this is Helena. I want to know about a file you were looking at a couple of days ago."

"Helena?" There was the sound of someone rolling over, fumbling. Then a pause. "By God, it's only eight AM! You woke me in the middle of my night to ask about a _file_?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Solange, but you were looking at a file the other night when I came by. I recognized a photo here with one of the islands in the background. I just wanted to know where it was."

"Wait a minute. I've only had about an hour to sleep." More sound. Helena could picture her neighbor back at the complex pummeling her pillows into submission in frustration. Then a long suffering sigh. "I was checking out a better paying job instead of the dance club. It was for the extraction of honey from the Victim Isles. A lot better paying, but if the safety arrangements aren't good enough, it would be suicide."

"My question is, what file you were viewing?"

Solange rattled off the file number, Helena apologized again and let her go back to sleep. She brought up the file she had been given, and watched it. She watched as Genetic slaves died trying to gather the honey, then she froze it. She automatically split the screen, and both were now one over the other. She had a memory that was almost photographic, and what she saw now was impossible. A quick command had both video files recorded to a chip. She picked up the phone again. "Maven? I have something interesting here." She nodded, hung up then picked up the chip she had recorded. She looked at the bag. three more Pierogi...

The problem was, she had lost her appetite.

**Seeing the impossible**

Ruth nodded as Helena came bustling in. "Sit down, Helena. Tea?"

"Yes, please." Ruth tapped the button, and a moment later Jason came in with a tray. He poured for them both, and left.

"All right, what do you have, Helena?"

The woman, at least seven years her senior, inserted a chip in a holo projector, and brought it to life. It was what you would expect of a typical beach party. Men and women in suits from staid to risque, frolicking in the water, hamming it up for the obviously anchored holo camera, barbequing under the Featherleaf trees, drinking; small shelters and stands with souvenirs. A typical beach party scene. In the distance, an island could be seen clearly. Ruth watched the video until it ended, then looked at Helena, an eyebrow arching.

Helena fumbled, and another video began. It wasn't a ground anchored camera. It was attached to the shoulder of a skin suit, and while the sound was turned off, she could see the background sweep as the person looking around frantically, and whoever it was wasn't alone. There were half a dozen others, and even as she watched, one fell twitching. Her imagination was good enough, the video of the faces inside those other helmets clear enough that she could imagine someone panting in terror. All around the people in what appeared to be Solarian issue Marine skinnies was a veritable cloud. Insects landing, stinging, biting down on the sections of suit between the ballistic armor plates as they stung. The person breasted a small hill, burst from the treeline, and there before him or her was a barren beach, and beyond it a coastline-

Ruth lowered the cup, her mouth tight over what she had almost spat out in surprise. "How long has passed between these videos?"

"Almost eleven years. The first one was taken back in 1908 PD. The more recent one was taken a month before they liberated the planet."

"Are we sure it's even the right island?"

Helena sighed, and shook her head. "No, ma'am. Statistically, there could be another island with such a headland. Or a bay with something like it that looks like an island."

Ruth looked at the scene, then had Helena do exactly what she had done before. The two might be the same. But how to prove it? "Then we'll just have to find out if that island has been used by men before. Though how they could have survived there seems impossible. Most of the traces will be gone, but something might remain." Ruth leaned forward touching her annunciator. "Give me Marine Tactical Analysis Section."

**Looking for clues**

Armand Dassault, late of the Republic of Haven tapped his telephone. "TAC Analysis, Captain Dassault speaking."

"Please hold for the Maven." A voice said.

Maven? Dassault wondered who that was. He knew enough Hebrew from dealing with the local Authentico Jews to know it meant 'the one who knows'. He had just made the connection when the line opened. "Mr. Dassault?"

"Yes, Princess?"

She sighed. "I would like to get a low level scan made of one of the Victim Isles. We're looking for proof of structures of any kind."

"Isn't that where those, what do you call them, spider-wasps live?"

"Yes."

"Talk about living on the edge. Wait one." He brought up the menu of what they had in stock. The UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was ancient, try 20th century CE ancient. A stealthy innocuous reconnaissance platform, that could slip in as unnoticed as possible. Some had flown so high they weren't even visible to the Mark 1 Eyeball from the ground. By the start of the Diaspora, they were barely visible on radar. There had been improvements, but not as many as you might think.

You couldn't use an impeller drive obviously because even the smallest one was detectable by gravitc sensors at half a light minute distance. Thrusters used by shuttles were out because you could hear them dozens of kilometers away unless you flew too high for something small enough to fit in a fuselage not much larger than a man. They had tried small fans to merely cause it to drift by, but they were so slow they were dead meat on a modern battlefield.

While jets were quieter than they had been back then, they made obvious noise that still could be heard at several kilometers. So most Army and Marine units about three centuries earlier had taken a step backwards instead to what was called a whisper fan created oddly enough by the civilian sector first, because of the constant complaints of civilians who lived near airports. The engine was a high bypass turbofan with wide vanes instead of narrow ones, so that they made a lot less noise; in fact you could stand beside one and have a conversation without raising your voice too much. At more than 200 meters, it was almost completely silent, merely a hum.

Modern radar absorbent material made them almost invisible on radar. Try the radar cross section of what was called the hummingbird. The ones Haven had deployed during the past war were slightly larger than the extinct Argentavis magnificens that was the largest flying bird of Earth, ten meters compared to seven. While they had once had fifteen of them on the base, the problem was that the largest local avian, Simply named Azhdarchidae Quetzalcoatlus after the 15.9 meter flying dinosaur of Earth; thought they were smaller avians that were their natural prey when they weren't fishing.

Now there were only four. It would do the job, launching it low and fast would avoid the Quetzalcoatl; they didn't like to fly much below a hundred meters, and fast would mean they could outrun one unless it was directly ahead of them. They'd lost two because of that.

"All right. We'll prep two and launch them in the next 20 minutes. They can be over the islands in-" He looked at the distance. "Just under nine hours. It will be dark there, but they have side-scan radar, IR and low light imaging capability. But they'll be at the end of their fuel. We'll lose them."

"Understood. Maybe we can buy some more from the Sollies or Manties."

He snorted at the idea of a Manticoran Princess calling her own nation by a sarcastic diminutive. "If you're buying, I'd go for either Mantie or Republican. Maybe Andermani from what I've heard. I always wanted to open up one of those Kondor class UAVs."

She laughed. "I'll see what I can do. Anything to keep you happy." He laughed as she hung up.

"Lopez! Prep two Phoenix!" The PFC looked up.

"Sir, I've been thinking of trying a variant of the sonic fences the Mesans used to keep the bigger animals out. If we rig an ultrasonic projector in the place of the standard air search radar dish, we might save the rest of our birds from being lunched."

"Maybe. But why not mount it under the belly and leave the radar?"

"Well... You could do that. But there's not a lot of aircraft we would track here. And Quetzalcoatl come up better in IR than they do on radar. So changing the radar out won't be a problem, and they weigh about the same."

Dassault stood, walked across the room, then leaned over his shoulder. "Good idea. Besides, these are going to be lost anyway. Do it."

**Aggressive Response**

Eight and a half hours later, Dassault stood behind the two remote pilots and their support teams. He had been right to worry about the Quetzalcoatl; there had been four attacks on the drones, and only that sonic projector Lopez had suggested had driven them off. Now they were close to their target, and they would soon begin to drop lower toward the ocean, from the ten thousand meters of best economic cruising to less than five hundred meters.

"Land sighted. Range 100 kilometers." One pilot reported. Dassault checked the aerial survey map. The series of small islands looked like a diorama he had seen once, the Hawaiian Islands of Earth, but much smaller; none of the islands in the chain were more than ten kilometers across and the entire chain was only about sixty kilometers in length with the largest (And smallest) to the left rather than the right. They were approaching from the east, so their target was right... there, due south of the largest at the opposite end. No one had named them beyond the Victim Islands, so they were just cataloged A through G with the island they were going to scan nicknamed A-small. It was also the furthest from the chain, about 20 kilometers south of A.

"Use the target island to split their course, one north, one south. Drop down to best imaging altitude while maintaining visual."

"Roger." As they closed, they began to drop like an aircraft using the planet to avoid being hit by enemy radar. "Range now five kilometers. Speed 200 knots." The pilot of unit one scowled. "Chaffee, see if you can clear up that image. I've got some kind of fuzz here."

"So am I." The pilot of unit 2 who was south of the target reported. "Looks like low lying fog, but it's moving."

The two imaging technicians went to work, but the fog wasn't clearing, it was increasing.

"Sir?" Dassault walked over. It wasn't fog, it was a spider-wasp swarm, and as he watched, it thickened.

"What the hell..." He checked the side looking radar on unit 2. It wasn't a single swarm, it was what looked like every damn spider-wasp on the entire chain taking off to attack-" Abort mission, pull out!"

Number 2 flew right into the swarm as it climbed, and the tell tales went red. "Engine peaking, crap, we're fodding out!" A moment later the engine died, and the drone spiraled in. Unit one had turned south and was running. It dropped as the pilot traded height for speed and firewalled the engine. It came out of it's dive only meters from the ocean, then hit the swarm from A small and it was gone.

Dassault stood. "Did we get _anything_?"

"I'll run it back and check, but I think we got nothing, sir." One technician reported. "Why were they flying at night?"

"Maybe the sonic projector." The other suggested.

"Can't be. It's short ranged, less than five kilometers." The first suggested.

"The IR sweep beam? Or maybe the surface scan radar we used when we came in. Or the engines, somehow."

"If they can detect radar, they're the first natural species I have heard of that can." Dassault said wryly. "Go back. See when the swarms were first detected." They ran back, and froze less than fifty kilometers from the first island in the chain. The first threads of this killer fog had taken off then. "Plot their course."

It looked like a fighter swarm launching to attack enemy bombers. The first island had launched, then the second, until all of them were in the air. But it looked odd. They would move, then pause, move then pause. He looked at A-small specifically, they had not headed toward the drone, they had been bound for... "Christ, it must be the IR beam. Look at that." He leaned forward, tapping the control keyboard that combined both images.

"You had the IR set to sweep. No problem; standard procedure. But these little buggers... They were attracted by the IR beam." He went back to when they first appeared, but now on the screen the sweeps were shown as well. At 58 kilometers, they saw the first spider-wasps take off; like sparks from a fire. As the sweeps moved away from the islands the swarms followed. The sweep, set to rotate once per four seconds would pass away from them, and they would pause, but they didn't head back toward the islands when they did. Then it would pass back over them, and they would follow it until again it swept past them.

As the drones got closer, naturally their sweep became narrower, and the spider-wasps moved to intercept. At fifteen kilometers, he paused it again. "Drone 2, Section fourteen by eleven, magnify and enhance."

The technician did as she was told. There was a brighter spark. "Magnify and enhance that section again." Again the technician did so. Now it was a bright spot almost man sized.

"All right, we have something." The technician tapped her keyboard, and brought a pattern recognition program. It ran for several minutes. Then came up. "Satellite power dish. But sir. That's on A, not A-small."

"Yep." He turned the replay back on, and after a few moments, the drones now almost to where they had been destroyed, he paused it again. "Section seventy-one by nineteen. Enhance and magnify."

This time there was a dark blot. "Again." The screen now showed an indistinct black object.

Again she brought a pattern recognition program. but nothing matched.

Dassault stood behind her. "Stop using the military program. Go for the civilian one."

"Sir?"

"Just do it Camber."

Camber shrugged, and began again. A few moments later she looked back, confused. "I don't know why, but it comes as... a barbeque?"

"You mean like an old fuel drum cut in half and anchored?" At the woman's nod he stepped back. "Go back to main screen, same time index. On the big screen."

The big screen was a plasma screen almost five meters to a side. He walked over to stand before it. "Now go for IR, but mark anything that is at ambient air temperature." The screen wasn't dark, nothing that lived was perfectly isothermic. Only solid matter, especially metals were. So the screen was lit by areas of trees, three spider-wasps hives.

"Sir?"

"I noticed that barbeque pit because nature doesn't make anything that is perfectly round, square or straight. We caught the structure from the end, where I could catch the pattern. Now we're looking for-" He stopped. "Section 221, by ninety-one."

Camber marked it with her track ball. "Civilian or military, sir?"

"You're already set up for civilian, use that."

The screen flashed, the segment becoming a square, but with parts obscured. "Landing pad. Big enough for a shuttle, sir. Wait. Other sections discovered." Now there were ghostly images and the software was tagging them. "It looks..." She shook her head. "Sir, if I didn't know better, I'd say it looks like one of those small tourist traps you have along a beach in season."

The captain went to his phone, dialed, and waited. "Captain Dassault, TAC analysis, sorry to bother you at home, Ma'am. You wanted us to scan A-small. Did you expect anything to be on A?" He listened. "All right ma'am, what did you expect to find on Small?" He paced, listening. "Yes, it's there, enough traces for small beachfront stores." He listened. "I asked because we found something on A as well. A satellite dish. And it's still active. Yes, ma'am. I'd suggest high altitude scanning. Both of our drones accidentally triggered the spider-wasps and were downed by them.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll tell them." He hung up. Then clapped his hands. "Maven says good work."

The men were looking at Dassault as if he were a magician. As he started to walk out, Camber had to ask. "Sir?" He stopped, looking over his shoulder. "How did you know which programs to use?"

"Rating, I was doing your job sixty years ago, back when the Legislaturists were in charge back home. I reached Gunny even under them. When the Committee slaughtered them, I rose to Master Gunner before I was almost sent off to Hell."

"Hell?" She wasn't from the Republic, she had been some ex slave coming to the promised land. But the story of Hell, the Cerberus system, and Steadholder Harrington's escape had been news throughout human space.

"I wasn't a Dolist. I came from a merchant family, meaning I was educated. When you start quoting old Earth poets, the average Dolist thinks maybe they didn't get all of the 'enemy'." He pulled a pack of cigars out, lighting one. "I was scheduled to be sent to Cerberus when Admiral McQueen asked for me to be sent to Barnett. I ended up assigned to Admiral Thiessman's staff when McQueen took over as Minister of War."

He blew a stream of smoke. "When St Just ate it, I was promoted to Warrant Gunner. So when it comes to spotting patterns; been there, done that, didn't bother to get the shirt." He grinned. "Everyone gets one drink on me over at the club. Night people." He waved over his shoulder.


	6. What to do, what to do

**What to do, what to do**

Ruth came in earlier than usual. The data from the drones was already on her desk, and she watched it silently. She hadn't been sure last night, so she'd call Abraham Sykes of her still barren science division. He had been a bit tipsy from his third postprandial brandy, but he had used his own computer at home to check what she asked. After all, it wasn't a secret, merely obscure.

A lot of animals had proven to be able to see into the infrared spectrum, but few were attracted by it. Mainly snakes and some insects, honey bees included. But from what she had heard, they didn't usually determine where it was strongest and head toward where something flying would pass through. It argued for intelligence in animals if they did.

Someone had once used A-Small, which she had now started thinking of as Conundrum, as a resort of sorts. Then suddenly they stopped fourteen years ago, and now there were spider-wasps there. And what about A, which she had now decided was Enigma? What kind of maniac would put down a power dish, an _active_ power dish in the middle of what was literally hell?

She touched her intercom. "Jason, who do we have attached to the Institute in life sciences?"

"No one, ma'am." The reply was brisk, if not a little puzzled. "We have been borrowing from the Ministry of the Commerce up to now. Any specific specialty?"

"I have something interesting here regarding the spider-wasps. If we needed to ask, who would you suggest?"

"Well... Commerce has a guy loaned to us by BSC. Jamie Mac. He's been working on ways to harvest the honey by making thicker skin suits, or maybe modifying powered armor suits if the drill and core method doesn't work."

She nodded to herself. The 'drill and core' was an idea suggested by one of the new citizens who arrived a few months before. Boring machines were used in a lot of construction where you needed to work without disturbing the surface, such as under existing cities. Erewhon was negotiating with Berry for some that could bore under the Victim Isles and create 'subways' to work from one island to the next, with the idea of cooling the tunnels and stations so that the insects would be unable to escape yet they could collect the honey safely.

"Thank you." She picked up her phone. While they had a functioning government, it was still more of a jury-rigged affair. So the Minister of Commerce was merely someone suggested by WEB, and appointed by Berry. Interior, Justice, everything but Prime Minister, Minister of War, herself, and Chief of Staff of the Military had been appointed by that small body who sat around the kitchen table kibitzing, and subordinates had been chosen by their ministers, meaning at the moment, there was a bit too much nepotism going on.

No answer. She looked at her watch, and grimaced. _Of course not, you silly bitch._ She chided herself. _Who else is in their office at zero dark thirty_? She set down the phone, then flinched when it rang. Who the hell? "Maven here."

"It's Thandi, Ruth. Berry wanted to make sure you remembered. We're having that early meeting to discuss the election. WEB has some worrisome problems he foresees." The woman gave a deep throaty chuckle. "Already at your desk I see. You know what they say about the Early Bird."

Ruth returned the laugh. "I always agreed with Heinlein. The Early worm has a death wish. I have some worries of my own to bring."

"Don't forget the doughnuts."

"For this meeting? Three boxes, all chocolate."

There was silence for a moment. "Boy you _are_ worried."

"I just got the full report from Battlement. Have you seen it?"

There was silence. "Yes I have. We'll discuss that last. Bad news, and worse news."

When they had the election later this week, the last of the fifty seats would be filled in what was already called the House of Citizens, or the Commons. There were still as yet no Lords to sit in the upper house. She knew Berry would be glad for the support. She had been hands on for too long, and while she kinda liked being queen, being an absolute monarch wasn't her cup of tea.

That was probably why she had stated right off the bat that every decision she and her 'kitchen cabinet' had made were up for review. And why the Constitution written by WEB was argued, slightly altered and voted on _first_. WEB firmly believed in clubbing the alligators while they were still dormant from the cold; before they were ready to be a problem, if he could.

–

Thandi was already pouring when Ruth arrived last. WEB already had his coffee, and immediately grabbed a chocolate filled. Berry and Hugh were there, and he grabbed the rest of the box. "You know, everyone has to share, Hugh." Berry told him tartly, making sure at least half were still there before passing it to the others. She sipped her own cocoa. "All right WEB. You called it, so why not get the meeting started."

"All right." He brought up his pad. "Item one, what we're going to be facing in the lower house. The upper we don't need to worry about, yet." He gazed slyly at Berry. "Until you actually start creating titles, we don't have one. So until you do, and we have enough there to become a problem, it is literally still us calling the shots in their stead."

"Until we have some people that have proven worthy of it, we'll stay that way." Berry shrugged. "I'm not going to start handing out titles like prizes in... what was that snack that businessman from Terra gave me? Cracker Jacks?"

"I agree. However until you do create the upper house, we're facing the one problem I see as major." He looked around. "We're not even dealing with a seated Citizen's house yet, and already party politics have emerged. Specifically this 'Progressive' party Conner Wittman has started, which I think will control 18 of the fifty." He flipped the page. "In his last speech, he pointed at us, but not you, Berry, calling us a 'cabal intent on maintaining the status quo ante'. And intends to 'go through every decision we have made with a fine tooth comb'; starting with your privy purse. He is also calling for a selection within the house to have whichever party has the most seats, and can gather enough support from those not of that party, can have their choice selected as Prime Minister in my place as of next year instead of the full five year term you created.

"He also has suggested that we really don't need a house of Lords, saying that the form used by the old United States with two elected houses of commoners would do better." He looked around the table. "He even wants to have an amendment similar to the old 'fourth guarantee' from the original US Constitution added as soon as they are seated." At Berry's confused look, WEB brought up the line from that ancient document. "'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government'."

"But that's good, isn't it?"

WEB shook his head, tapping the pad. "It was also the legal reason the United States declared the Confederacy invalid before their Civil War. Once everyone who would have protested was gone, the Congress merely stated that those people, and their representatives, had no right to decide for themselves if the government they were leaving was not willing to accept their choice." He grinned. "You don't want to end up in a local war just because you gave the Citizens House the right to decide for our own people really need, do you?" She shook her head.

"Now, the last, and most disturbing. I won't read the entire measure he wants as the first on the agenda, but what it boils down to is that you, as our queen, have arrogated the right to make decisions for the nation, and you should, instead, be asked to give that power to the houses, allowing you only the right of advise and consent rather than the other way around."

Berry's eyes tightened, as did her lips. "We've had a Constitution for what, nineteen months, and he already wants to not amend it, but reverse it? Correct me if I am wrong, but under the Constitution we've already have, I have the right of refusal of any minister, and the right to prorogue the lower house at my discretion?" WEB nodded. "So let me see if I am right. While wording it oh so politely, he thinks I'm some young silly bitch who is A; spending money like a drunken spacer just because I can, B; thinks all of my present advisers are Machiavellian in nature, which as aforementioned 'silly bitch' I have no clue of what you all are and C; that I think I am the reincarnation of Ekaterina Veleskaya who holds supreme power and I need a bunch of, of, _Politicians_ he is no doubt going to lead to tell me what is right so I can just rubber stamp it?"

"Not as...gently put as I would have, but on the whole, yes."

She leaned back. "Well if that is what he thinks, he has another think coming." She looked at Hugh. "Hugh, dear, could you clear my schedule around the time the elections are over next week? I _so_ want to meet this man." She looked at WEB, and the look would have done either Catherine the Great or Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore proud. "If I am going to cut the son of a bitch off at the knees, it's going to be in person. Anything else?"

"We have the information from the first flight from Operation Battlement." Thandi said. "We have rescued 512,421 in this first lift. But there's a problem."

Berry looked at her. "Problems, I hate problems. How big a problem?"

Thandi looked to Ruth, who took over. "We were off by just under a hundred thousand on the slaves. There were almost 400,000 slaves there. But we never considered the Seccies. When we arrived, every one of them wanted to go with us." She looked down. "There are almost a million more being loaded or enroute as we speak. They've got eighteen captured ships including the liner _Angel Star _whicharrived yesterday, and we'll move what we can, but... We're not sure how many will be left behind. Won't know for another week at least."

"And over 400 of our own are staying behind to cover for them. Second Company 1st Battalion of Berry's own, my own sisters from Ndebele, and the tracking party we sent to run the station systems. They all volunteered to give others space." Thandi finished. She bent, then held out a bundle. "Captain Simonds of the 2nd company and her people sent this; said it would never fit her."

Berry opened the package. It was a blue dress of Jensen' World spider silk. Her eyes burned. A gift from people no doubt already dead.

Ruth cleared her throat. "One last thing." She didn't flinch at Berry's snarling look. "We have found some data that suggests Manpower was going to try some bioengineering with the Spider-wasps. There is evidence that one of those islands was, up until recently, being used as a resort. And there is still an active power dish on another of them."

"That is insane!" Thandi said in disbelief. "They set up some kind of research facility on an island _infested_ with them?"

"The point is," Jeremy replied musingly. "Were they already there? Or were they brought from somewhere else?"

"We need to have some of them examined, before we begin to Drill and Core." Ruth said. "If only to be sure of exactly what we're dealing with."

"Agreed." Berry said. You can handle it?"

"Sure, Berry. As soon as I can find people to do it with!"

"What, you're still sitting there?" Berry waited until Ruth started to stand. "Ruth, I'm _joking_!"

"One thing you might like though." WEB commented. "Witch Maiden has returned from Roundelay. You did want to talk to Rating Dollaryde about starting a brewery here."

"Yes." Berry set the dress down on the table. "You know the form for an old fashioned Patent, WEB, have it drawn up. We'll have something to look forward to after the elections at least."

**Creating the Team**

Ruth Winton looked at what she sometimes laughingly referred to as the Head Count - the Roster of Citizens, Known Immigrants and Transients, and cursed, fluently and without repetition, for three minutes straight. _Need to add Novi Rosski..._

Mentally, she usually broken them into four basic meta-groups: Basics, Brawns, Brains, and Troubles. Basics were just that: basic baker, basic welder, basic IT computrician, whatever. Torch was surprisingly well supplied with them, provided you didn't mind a lot of overlap into the other meta-groups.

Brawns they were paradoxically both over- and under-supplied with. The Ballroom now had their Promised Land - and an awful lot of them came to visit, meet, greet, coordinate, _cohabitate -_ _focus, Ruth. _Team player Brawns - trained military, in other words - not so much. And most of those were spacers. _Law enforcement... God. Problem for another day._

Troubles were those people who had known issues. Most of these were former slaves, but an uncomfortable percentage of them were Ballroom - and they _could not _be turned away. The thing that constantly surprised her was how few of these actually lost it. _The wounded recognize their own. _She offered a quick prayer for them all. Technically her own father belonged on that list.

The Problem of the Day was Brains - as in, xenogeneticists and xenobiologists. Thing was, Torch had lots of them - all transients, and all but three of them under contract to one or another of the multi-stellars, at that. The three that were not were on the Watch list. _And not one who has taken the Oath._

"Computer, repeat search; include secondary fields." _I ought to have minions for this kind of work..._

Ruth leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea as she relayed her findings to her guest.

"Jaime, I'm sorry, truly. I warned you I didn't think Torch had anyone who was completely qualified, and I'm afraid I was correct. I don't have anyone that meets with your needs."

Jaime Mac sat quietly in his chair and sipped his tea in turn. Physically, he was utterly nondescript; average build, brown hair cut short, nothing remarkable to point at. A one hundred fifty year veteran of the Beowulf Biological Survey Corps, his actual job title was simply, Generalist. One had to be deeply involved in the Trade to know just what that meant. He was on loan to Torch in the capacity of genetic researcher from the Beowulf Biological Survey Corps _- _and unofficial advisor. _And undoubtedly observer, too... _He was among the best of the BSC, and Ruth knew well how lucky they were to have him.

"I can't say I'm surprised, ma'am." He said calmly. "So we train some up. You're going to have to start doing that at some point anyways - it might as well be now. What do you have as secondaries?"

Ruth passed across a chip folio. "I have twenty-three individuals who have the basic educational requirements, at least; seven who are actually research assistants in the fields. The problem is that, of those seven, four are contractually obligated long-term transients. I only have three who have taken the Oath, and there are issues with all of them."

Jaime raised an eyebrow. "Issues?"

Ruth grimaced. "Two of them are over at John Aubergine - we need them where they are. The third..." She shook her head. "I don't know. She's at loose ends - she was psychologically traumatized somehow in the Liberation, we don't have the full story. What we have is in the file. She tends bar at a hostel here in Beacon."

"Then I will have her to start, and you will keep track of the twenty-three, and God willing, in a year we'll be ready to take a second draught. All will be well."

In the privacy of his suite, Jaime slotted the chip and started to familiarize himself with his potential recruit. Kerin Mary Anne Cleartraine, age twenty-seven, born on Nuovo Terre - _Core worlder, eh? _- city of Seraphim, educated privately - _privately? _- accepted to the University of Edinburgh - _on Old Earth itself_ - Bachelors in xenobiology, Masters - _Masters not complete. Huh. Did she run out of money?_

Accepted contract: New Way Pharmaceuticals, as a research assistant, arrangements with University of Maredo - _where the hell is that, I wonder_ - for concurrent credit towards Masters degree. _Of course._ Entry to Vista Verde for research purposes, pursuant to Private Contract.

So she had been in Mesa's recruitment program. A bit young - they usually waited until the prospect had their Masters, and was well-and-truly in debt, before dangling the plum job. The hook was that they'd clear the college loans immediately, and the prospect could then pay the employer back over time - generally at very little or no interest. Only after the prospect was hired and the debts transferred did the new employee find out what the job entailed. Usually from somewhere they couldn't easily leave.

The last part was much more fragmentary. She and her team had been on a remote site as part of a multi-site research project. The Night of Rage had detonated, and her site had actually been untouched, due to lack of communication. But then the Liberation had begun sweeping the planet, contact was lost with their company HQ in Beacon - but not before they had warned the campsites of mass uprisings. Then the transmissions of what the former slaves were doing to their former masters had begun. The site supervisors - read slave owners/users - had panicked and fled, after trying to destroy all the evidence of what had been going on at the site. Part of that destruction had been the slaves - and the research assistants, when they had tried to prevent the murders of the slaves.

There were no records of what had happened to the supervisors after that.

Kerin and her fellow surviving students - there had been eleven of them originally, of whom seven had survived, counting Kerin - had actually been sheltered in place by the former slaves of their site. Apparently they had been hiding a group of supposedly deceased slaves and working towards smuggling them off-planet. After the site had Liberated, they had stayed in the bush until things calmed down. Eventually a pair of the newly liberated came into Beacon, made contact with the provisional government, and Kerin and the others had been offered repatriation. Kerin and two others had taken the Oath and stayed, instead. _Tending bar in a hostel for little more than room and board... why? _

"Good afternoon."

"And a good afternoon to you, sirrah! Well-come and well-met! What might I pour you?" Kerin Cleartraine was apparently healthy and happy - hair clean, clothes neat, even a touch of cosmetics.

"Beer, an IPA if you have any. If not..." Kerin was looking sorrowful. "I suppose not. What do you have?"

"I have an amazing selection of local beverages: jash, noli, a really awful grumwallah - it's named for the sound the first guy who tasted it is supposed to have uttered afterwards, but it grows on you - and generic trade beers and wines, both red and white, all made on planet. No hard liquors, sorry, this is a hostel after all... " Jaime noticed that for all of Kerin's light, bantering tone, she was always moving - in this case, literally polishing a heavy glass as she spoke. He did not miss that she held the glass in such a way that she could throw it.

Jaime matched her tone, a surprisingly genuine smile touching his lips. "Hm. I've never tried grumwallah. What's a standard serving?"

Kerin set the glass before him. "For a first taste, half an ounce, on the house. If you want more, we'll discuss price." She poured a small amount of a vehemently green fluid into the glass and stepped back, watching clinically. "Medical center is right up the road if needed."

Jaime picked it up and looked at it clinically. It had a pungently herbal nose that reminded him of spruce, or fir, with overtones of pepper and lemon - no, limes, but not quite... Almost without thinking, he delicately sipped.

It exploded across his tongue, mouth-puckeringly tart, with an astringent component to the sensation. Green leafiness came next, harsh but instantly mellowing into an impossibly complex citrus-y something that tantalized - and then escaped him, wafting away as nicely as one might wish for. He found himself smacking his lips as he regarded the glass. Then he looked up.

"Terrible. Truly awful. You'd best let me have the rest of it to dispose of properly." He said mildly.

"I know, right? If I tried to tell people it was great, they'd take one taste and spit it out. I've been having much better sales telling everyone how bad it is..." She grinned and poured a rather larger measure for herself, then sipped and worked it around in her mouth, keeping a perfect poker face the entire time. "I'm thinking a bit more pearsage in the next batch..."

Jaime raised an eyebrow. "You made this?"

Kerin shook her head. "Oh no, I just sell it. A little old lady down the way makes it."

Jaime let it slide. "Then I -" he stopped as he assessed his internal condition. "That isn't alcohol, is it?" He asked just as mildly.

Kerin was watching him closely. "No, it's not. Our grumwallah has a bit of alcohol in it, but no more than a really mild ale. It helps with the absorption, though. Just be easy, it won't get any stronger than it is as long as you don't drink any more of it. You haven't been slipped a mickey, I swear." Keeping her movements obvious, she raised her glass - poured from the same carafe, Jaime recalled - and downed it. "It helps with - with anxiety, with over-reactivity, with - with everything. PTSD symptoms. Pretty much everyone in this part of town has it to some degree."

Jaime found himself believing her. "So it must be your best seller. Addictive?"

Kerin snorted and put the carafe back in the cold spot. "Like coffee - except folk want it at the end of the day, not the start." She grinned. "The grain neutral was my idea - although almost everyone who makes it has their own personal recipe. The ingredients all grow within an hour's walk of the walls. I drank a lot of it the first year after - after the Liberation. Lot of bad things, bad people - it was just bad. Aunt Mae started me on this six weeks after the Liberation, and I've been here ever since."

"Three years? What did you do before the Liberation?"

"I was a research assistant, xenogenetics. We were up-country, north of here. Things went bad..." She came to rest for a moment, and then was moving again. "I've tried to keep current; I assist free-lance, especially towards real-world applications. Bug repellents that work and don't stink or poison a place, some food applications..." Kerin picked up a glass and started polishing. "I audit classes as I can, assist in labs, though it's mostly field work. I'd like to go back to school, but my credit is ruined, and I can't go back to the League; New Way made sure of that - I'm a known associate of terrorists. Beowulf wouldn't care about that, but my academic record wasn't good enough for them, and that was back when it was current. Fortunately, Torch is a very cash and carry place."

Jaime leaned forward. "What if I could make that all happen? You know the Spider-wasps? There's more to it than we know yet; I've been asked to assist with that. I know people."

Kerin leaned forward, her eyes huge. "You know people?"

Jaime was not fooled, and did not lean in. "Yes, I do."

Kerin straightened. "Yeah, right. Have Queen Berry call me, and then we'll talk. Get out."

Jaime stood carefully. "I think I can do better than that." Kerin inhaled deeply, and Jaime raised his hands and quickly sidled towards the door. "I'm going, I'm going..."

"Maven? Jaime. I want to bring Kerin Cleartraine up to the palace, for an audience with Berry, and then the read-in with your people. She doesn't believe me, and I think it would be the simplest... uh? Oh. Ah, good afternoon, Majesty..."

It was perhaps two hours later, and the sun was going down. The evening crowd was starting to arrive, and Sid the short-order cook was busy. Things were getting noisy out on the street, more so than usual - and then half a dozen Amazons walked in to cheers, and Good Queen Berry seated herself at the bar and grinned at Kerin. "I hear this place has a really bad grumwallah..."

**Even More questions**

Helena's eyebrow quirked The first shipments of honey from the planet had started two years before the video now labeled the 'beach party'. There wasn't a lot; maybe a couple of hundred tons every month. Then suddenly it had just... stopped a few months after that video had been shot. The new shipments began eighteen T months before the Liberation; but in less quantity; closer to fifty or so tons a year.

She nibbled her lip. The records said _nine_ different varieties of honey. She picked up her phone. This number she had to look up.

"Commerce, Daala Washington here."

"This is Helena Stavrakas over at the Institute."

"The institute... Oh, the _Institute_." The woman sounded so excited. Of course how often did an over glorified government salesperson get a call from the local Intelligence agency? "How may I be of service?"

"I seem to have found an anomaly in the shipments of Spider-wasp honey."

"I don't see why, ma'am." There was a clicking of computer keys. "We have listings of all nine varieties-"

"Varieties?"

"Why yes. Honey usually has a tang of the blossoms primarily used by the collector species. As an example, on Terra, they discovered that by placing the beehives in an orchard, you not only get more production from the trees, but the honey is also flavored by that. Of course Spider-wasps are more like the Yellowjacket; they do gather nectar, but they also chew up leaves of aromatic plants which also flavors it. Did you know they have two stomachs? And the contents depend on the protein content because they feed on things with high protein contents, and that goes into the jelly stomach, and those proteins are fed to the larvae, and store the honey for the adults.

"Most honey on Terra is clover honey because humans grow it as cattle feed, though in the Southwest of the Old United States they also have sage honey because the plant is more common-"

_Great, I've obviously started this woman on her personal hobbyhorse_. Helena shoved her foot into the haemorrhaging flow. "So if you have a peach orchard say, the honey will have a peach flavor?"

"Exactly!"

"So each of the Victim Islands have different flowers, and each gives them different tastes. I'm looking at the very first shipments... How was it different?"

"It is what we have tagged Black Rotor Honey. Except for samples of the genus from the Southern continent, it is rare on the planet. The plant lives near the sea in most cases, and the seeds are like Earth's Dandelion, which means it propagates using the prevailing winds-"

"So to get Black Rotor Honey," She again stamped on the verbal flood, "They would have needed to spread the seeds on the Victim Islands?"

"Well, yes, I suppose. But none of the other honey varieties have traces of Black Rotor. Dragon's Tongue, Fireplant, Jessica's Lily, a few others. But no Black Rotor."

"Thank you." She hung up before the woman could drag her into yet more avenues. She looked at the information again in dawning horror. Nine separate varieties of honey.

But there were only _eight_ islands in the Victim Chain.


	7. The Genesis of Lori

I had intended to wait a while on this, but my muse (Picture the Biker Bitch from Hell) dragged this out of me while I was at work. It is about her first attempt to free one of her 'sisters' and in the next segment will introduce the rest of her 'family'. Oh, and all of the things Nigel does to make things go boom? They really work...

**How she came to be**

Lori wasn't on the bridge, she was the cook today. She stirred the Alfredo sauce, then the linguine. "Almost done."

"Good, I'm perishing here." Nigel commented. "I wish I could cook as well as you do."

"You boil water and the room blows up. Why do you think you're not on the cooking rota, Nigel?" She commented.

"It's just that I like my food spicy."

"You get to eat, then you do dishes. I don't want to have to redecorate again."

"Picky, picky."

She drained the noodles, and pulled down a stack of plate, thrusting them into the man's hands. "You know the drill."

He sighed, setting the places as Lori set the salad bowl, homemade dressing, and fresh made garlic bread on the table. Then she walked out of the galley, headed aft. Ralph was sacked out; so she didn't bother him. Sean was walking through the fusion room, merely noting the readings. On a ship as small as a dispatch boat, you didn't need a standing watch in the major spaces, helm, com and engineering. So you had one who walked through the ship fore and aft, and one on the helm.

"Supper's ready. We should be done before we reach Torch."

"Thanks, skipper." She sighed inwardly. It wasn't that she disliked the three Ballroom ops of her team. It was that they never seemed to loosen up around her. The ones she considered family joked, played, teased, even; in the case of Sasha, did other more intimate things with anyone who would stand still long enough.

She wondered for a moment as she headed forward if it was possible that she had held them at arms length for so long that they just felt _she_ didn't like _them_. Henry was on the helm, and she promised to bring him his dinner. Nika and Sasha were in their quarters, playing chess.

The game had never appealed to Lori. She believed as a famous fantasy writer of Earth had once said, that it was a microcosm of authoritarian society; the pawns going off and dying while the fat cats sit back and schmooze. As he had commented, if you got the pawns and Rooks together, you could stage a peasant revolt and have the board be a Republic in four moves.

Hiram and Sean were in the small gym. Hiram reminded her of the HD bad guys in prison, working on his upper body with the resistance weights. He did it though to convince other people of how bad ass he was. The guy was one of the four best read on the ship, and his library rivaled her own when it came to the variety of what was in it.

Sean was using the uneven parallel bars, going through a routine that would have looked better if he were a woman competing at a competition. He had once commented that as a child before he had been freed, he had seen a competition where they had teams competing, and always wondered why the men didn't use the uneven bars to compete. Then he would describe how much it hurt if you were a bit too tall when you swung from the upper to scissor around the lower. Like a swimmer or gymnast, his muscles were long and sleek. He looked about as dangerous as a treecat, and to carry that analogy further, he _was_ as dangerous at need.

She headed back, and found the others already seated. Ralph was there, commenting that if he didn't get up now, the others would leave him maybe a crust of bread. Ralph was a stolid hard working man built like an old American football defensive lineman, he hadn't said a complete sentence in a day since she met him, so the entire sentence above was five words, 'don't eat now, won't eat'. She'd made enough for fourteen, which was good because Nika and Ralph were both people who needed the extra reactor mass just to keep from starving. Nika at least set aside a portion for Henry before they started.

There was light chatter as they ate, but again, mainly from her family. She finished, dabbing at her mouth with the napkin. "We'll come over the wall in twenty. Nika, get with everyone and be ready with our stores list. Sasha, you're on com this time. Please, please, please, do not proposition someone over the air this time."

"But he was so fine, skipper!" The woman gave her a gamine grin. "And he was so much fun when we did meet."

"Be that as it may. This is not a Love Boat."

She bowed, tapping her forehead on the table twice. "My captain's wish is my command."

Lori shook her head. Something in Sasha's genetics made her as horny as an Earth bunny, and as fertile. She had once joked that her mother got pregnant at the drop of a zipper. Luckily her implant stopped it. But she practiced every chance she got. The problem was she was also as flighty as a bee, going from flower to flower as if none would ever satisfy her. She had both the hormones and the self control of a teenaged boy.

SS _Coral Snake_ came over the hyper wall, her sails flashing with coruscating colors, then formed her impeller wedges. She surged into motion, headed toward Torch.

Lori went through the usual automatically. Reactor mass, stores required, reactivating the accounts. By the time Ruth Winton's call reached her, she was done.

"Welcome back." The Maven said. "We didn't find two of your line on Good Times." She waited until Lori's face fell. "We found _four_."

"Wonderful!"

"And one was from your batch. In fact she's number one to your five."

Lori stared at her. She had met only one of her batch before. And that had not been the best thing in her life. It was the first time she had tried to free a slave, and it had almost been her last...

**First Attempt**

Lori had been transferred to the _Geatland_ as first mate, and of course Henry followed. They were friends, and shared everything. He taught her a love of Celtic poetry as done on Gaia, and she taught him her mother's recipes. Every meal he was hailed as a master chef, he said, because of them.

_Geatland_ ran the Clockwise circle route from Beowulf to Merda, Maya Sector, Erewhon, then back to the Old League and home. A trip that took over a year.

They had stopped at a Verge World named Eyes of Texas. She had wanted to snort. There were seven worlds christened with the name of that State in there somewhere (Including one called Baja Texas, where people who claimed to be of actual Texan Descent were not even allowed). From what she had learned having traded on five of them (Three inside the League), was that the only people the Texans hated more than interlopers, were people from those other worlds that bore the name.

The schisms between them went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Three had broken away because they didn't agree with who should be Rangers, which is the only thing they all agreed on; Rangers were the government officials whether it was elected appointed or hereditary. One planet had been settled by people who thought proper music had not been made since someone named Hank Williams had died for example. She knew it took all kinds to make a galaxy, but some people abuse the privilege.

They had gone to a restaurant in the Outlander's Quarter to celebrate her 43rd birthday. The others of the crew that had come with her had headed back after dinner except for Henry when the captain had called. A couple of the new hires had supposedly gone looking for a rumored illegal casino.

She wanted to curse. No actually, she wanted to rip off the tops of their heads to try to find out what impulse in their brains had made them do something that stupid. Merciful Buddha, as the second officer before, and now first officer, how many times had she given that gotterdamnt speech? Coming from Beowulf, these planets on the Verge were like walking in the slums of Earth. Somewhere shivery to tell your friends about.

That is, if you survived.

She'd tracked them by their local credit plates. The ones used these days back in the League were designed to not allow withdrawals without the person it belonged to either holding it in hand to use, or having a thumbprint with a temperature monitor; which stopped the sadistic types that would steal it and cut off the thumb to take along. This place wasn't even remotely high tech enough for them, so the captain had taken part of their salaries (Issued in port upon request or upon their return home) and put it in prepaid old fashioned magnetic _swipe_ cards with PIN numbers. Better than actual physical cash; because by calling up the bank records, the captain could track them like a hound on the scent.

The trail led to yet another bar in the section that was supposed to be locals only; though like a lot of such places, it was an official 'do not do' that most ignored, though at their own peril. At least they were in civvies, because except for the dock space, uniforms were only permitted for the retinues of the local ranchers and Rangers. She had read about how rival gangs would kill anyone on their 'turf' for wearing the wrong colors back in the old ages of Earth, and she had seen enough of that elsewhere to make her worry. This was one of those places where they still had 'cause of death; because he was stupid' as an acceptable determination before a coroner's inquest, right up there with 'he deserved killin'."

"So they were here for a drink." Henry said coming out. On this station, she wouldn't have even been allowed in the door because she looked so young.

"How drunk were they?"

"Still mobile and relatively coherent according to the barman. Wagner Chen was making sounds about being interested in finding some companionship..."

"Does he even _try_ to keep it in his pants?" She shook her head. He was almost her age, but he thought restraint was either the cuffs a local cop used making an arrest, or a something you used in kinky sex. Then she grinned. "But if this place is like most..."

"Of course it is, in that regard." Henry motioned. "A house of ill repute called the Golden Flower, that way."

"Golden Flower? That's pretty upscale sounding for this neck of the woods."

"Disputes with Yellow Rose of Texas. They threatened to hire a fleet if any one of the other Texans used it."

She shook her head. For some reason, the names of bars hadn't matured with the rest of the species. She had lost count of the bars where singles met named Meet Market, or Dew Drop Inn. "Insanity, thy name is Texas." She commented softly. "Lead on, MacDuff."

"It's 'lay on', Number One."

"I know that, you silly bitch."

The area went from bad to worse in less than three city blocks, though it was only a term people from the ground would hope to understand when on a station. The Golden Flower had a holographic representation of (of course) a yellow rose, and the shill outside the door was ready to give them the spiel even before they moved toward it until he saw Lori.

"Hey, little lady. Only customers allowed inside, and no one under age."

She took out her ID, and showed it to him. "First officer of _Geatland _out of Beowulf. Two morons from my crew were directed here by a local bar. I've come to collect them."

He ran the card through his scanner. "Well, all right. But have your man here with you at all times. In those clothes, you might be taken for one of the working girls."

"Only until I hurt them enough to leave me alone."

"You'd best find a more... subtle approach." The man was suddenly serious. "If they think you work here, and you hit them, they can hit back."

"What, you don't treat ladies politely here?"

"They're workin, they ain't ladies, if you get my drift."

"I see." On Beowulf they had licensed escorts which was the modern way of having women (Or men) delivered who would supply such services. It was a crime to strike them just as much as it would be if they were people you passed on the street. Worse yet, the escort services reserved the right to blackball you if you were abusive.

The place looked nice, if you like red velvet wall hangings and erotic art. There was a bar with women dressed in everything from an ancient school-marm to a dancing girl of that bygone era when Texas had it's first heyday down to corsets and antique bloomers. A beaded curtain led to another room where the girls actually working a shift would be.

Lori looked around, appalled by the casual pinches and caresses the girls had to put up with. "What kind of woman actually accepts this in this day and age?"

"Those who don't have another trade, Number One. And genetic slaves."

She grimaced. "Yeah. All right, we're going to find these two morons, and send them home. Then we're getting the hell out of here." She took out the flatpics of the crewmen, and went to the bar.

"You're underage, you can't drink." The bartender said the instant he saw her. Again she handed over the ID, followed by the flatpics.

"Ain't seen 'em."

She sighed, pulling out her own cash card. "I am not a jealous wife or daughter. I am the first officer of a Beowulfan ship. These two are not supposed to be out of the Outlander's Quarter. So you would be doing a public service by getting them out of here before there is trouble."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Fifty Pesos."

"Twenty."

"They're your people, not mine. Forty."

She sighed and nodded. "And a couple of drinks, please."

He took the card, scanned it, handed her the PIN pad with the amount of fifty Pesos on it, his bribe and the drinks, and she authorized it. "Table right back there. I'll have the bouncer find them and get them out, once they've finished their... exercises."

She picked up her drink, sipped it, then handed it back. "I don't pay five pesos a shot for watered down whiskey, and neither does he." The bartender traded them out, she sipped, accepted hers, and they moved to the table he had marked.

It didn't take that long. The first one was a kid on his first cruise, and it was only his first time off the reservation, so she only told him to head back to the ship right now, and expect a rocket from the skipper for his indiscretion. Chen didn't have that excuse, and she spent several minutes reading him riot act before sending him on his way. She looked at the half empty glass before her. She hadn't really wanted the damn thing, but in a bar, someone without a glass was immediately suspect. She picked it up, eyes going to the mirror behind the bar, and she froze. She was reflected in the mirror-

-twice. To her left near a man with as the old saying goes, rushin' hands and roamin' fingers, was someone that looked like her. She was smiling, but it was a practiced smile, with no real warmth in it. The smile of someone only doing their job, not because they like the person they're with.

She set the drink down. Henry started to talk, and she waved him to silence. The woman at the bar, stood, brushing the man's hands away with a teasing air; also well practiced, and walked across the room toward the bathrooms.

"Lori?" She was already in pursuit, and it dopplered away as she moved at a fast walk. She pushed the door open, seeing a standard restroom you'd expect anywhere they had indoor plumbing. It was empty at the moment. No doubt they had this only for the rare female customer of such an establishment.

There were two stalls, and she heard the system flushing, then the woman stepped out. She went straight to the mirror, looking at her make up as she washed her hands. It was her, or rather like her namesake, like she would look when she appeared to be forty odd years old. She had the minor lines near her eyes of wrinkles, and those eyes were dead. She was dressed in a Chinese Qipao, cut short enough that there was a flash of black panties and stockings below it. The make up was the garish colors you'd expect from where she worked, and looked layered on like someone had used a trowel. The woman looked up, saw her standing there, and motioned. "The stalls are free."

"I didn't come for that." Lori walked forward. She moved as carefully as someone approaching a feral kitten. "I think you and I have something in common."

The woman merely looked at her. "Unless you're a new hire, the only thing we have in common is our sex." She turned, and froze as Lori touched her shoulder gently. She couldn't think of how to say it, to explain who she was and what this woman she had just met for the first time meant to her. Finally, she stuck out her tongue.

The woman looked at it blankly for a long moment. Then she extended her own. C-21a/51-7/8-9. "Why," she motioned to Lori, then herself. "Why do you look so young?" She touched the corners of her eyes, the furrows on her forehead. Then hesitantly touched the same unmarred places on Lori's face.

"They got me away from it. I was rescued. Now it's your turn." Lori took her shoulders, "Let me save you."

The woman's face fell. "You can't save me. Leave me here, please."

Lori was stunned. "You _want_ to be used like a facial tissue? Just used and discarded" She shook her head. "Come on, I'm getting you out of here."

"No, you can't!" Lori was on autopilot, dragging the woman even as she protested. She got to the bar area, and motioned to Henry who saw the woman with her, and suddenly understood.

"Hey, where you taking my bitch!" The abandoned man howled. The room fell silent. Every eye was on her, but in her righteous fury she wasn't paying attention.

A large man near the door stood, and she glared at him. "If you want to keep your balls, you will get the hell out of my way!" She snarled. He stepped aside, but as she and Henry reached the threshold, they spasmed as a field stunner blasted them into unconsciousness.

Her head felt like what a tennis ball must feel after a brisk match. Besides the bad taste, she also felt as if her tongue had almost been ripped out. Her stomach was not at all happy, and while she had never been stunned before, she had read all of the information she could get about it, since occasionally members of her crew had been stunned. So she wasn't surprised that she felt like vomiting. She fought a rearguard action against the coming explosion.

Someone jerked her up by the neck of her dress, and she lost the battle, spewing all over the indistinct figure in front of her. The man cursed, then a ham like fist slammed her back to the floor.

"Gently, Vince." A voice said. She knew if she ever heard such a smarmy tone with a rich Texas accent again, she'd automatically loathe the speaker. "She isn't going to be much use in my stable if you break her jaw."

"Sorry, Mr. Lomax." She opened her gummy eyes, looking around to find out who had spoken. He was actually a rather attractive man in a suit that would not have looked out of place back home, meaning a lot more upscale than anything she had seen so far. But if the taint of evil could be seen at birth, there would been an infanticide when he was born. He was standing outside the caged enclosure, looking at her speculatively. Then he looked at the IDs he held. "Henry Duchamps of New Dijon, and Lori Pettigrew of Beowulf." He mused. "But that tongue says you're a slave."

"Was." She spat to try to get the taste out of her mouth. "A free citizen of Beowulf since I was eight."

"You aren't on Beowulf." Lomax replied calmly. "You and your man here are in violation of the local law. Attempted theft of private property; my slave Jade." He pointed, and she looked. The woman she had tried to rescue sat in the corner deep in her own misery. "The punishment is fifteen years in the local lock up."

"Fine, take me to court."

"Been and done." He said, smiling. "You've been sentenced, and turned over to me as the wounded party. When you grease the right palms, justice is very swift out here. Your ship has been informed, and has been ordered to depart." The smile widened. "So both of you get a chance to see how the other half lives." His smile grew feral. "And how they die.

"Your friend will get a chance to live, for a while, in my arena. But Jade?" He walked around the cage, hand running over the bars almost lovingly. "Jade, Jade, Jade. I told you the last time that it would be the last." He looked at Lori, and his hate shown for just a moment. "She's tried to escape every chance she got. She was in hospital for six months the last time.

"You would not be alive today if Ranger Bonham had not liked you so much. And this is the thanks he gets." He leaned, hand through the bars, and Jade flinched at his gentle touch. He leaned closer, whispering. "But you're starting to show your age, aren't you? And since you never got Prolong, you'll just wither away until you're as attractive as an apple doll. I'm being merciful actually."

He stood, finally completing the circuit. "Ranger Bonham got the Prolong treatment before he found out about Jade here. She's been his favorite for over thirty years. He even introduce his son to sex with her. But the young man is not as pleased with her. She's too old, too... used. But you did, meaning you'll be as fresh and young as you are now when his grandson gets his first taste, and that boy's grandson.

"But you get a treat first. You get to see what is going to happen to them before I turn you over to my men to be properly broken in." His hatred showed again. "So they can thank you for what is going to happen to them. Vince, bring them." Three men moved to the gate, cuffed them, and brought them out.

**Plaza De la Muerte**

"My Plaza De la Muerte." Lomax waved from the glassed in box. Below him the seats were filling. "My own little gladiatorial arena, and it's televised in every bar on the station outside the Outlander's Quarter."

"Bloodsports?" Lori couldn't keep the distaste out of her voice. Where ever man went, he took his darker side with him. For every sport where there was some danger, you had ones with the safeguard removed. Instead of boxing, you had bare knuckle boxing sometimes leading to someone being beaten to death. You would have wrestling become a spectator sport with choreographed mayhem, then arrange it to end in serious injury and death instead. Finally it would sink to this. Three thousand years after Rome began to fall apart, they were still throwing men into pits and watching them die for entertainment.

"A big money maker. Every bookie on the station is tied in, and we make money hand over fist." Lomax seemed to enjoy her reaction. He looked past. "Here's what will happen to Jade tomorrow morning for the early show." Below them, a door opened. A woman in the rags of what looked like a uniform was shoved in. She looked around, then up at the filled seats. Someone behind her threw in a short sword, then the door closed. "The last of my revenge on the Manticorans." Lomax commented. "Three years ago, I had sent a consignment of slaves I had on hand to Silesia. The Manticoran Navy captured the ship, freed the slaves, and executed the crew. My crew."

"So an associate who has connections to some of the pirates out here happened to capture a Manticoran merchie. He sold me the crew. Fifty of them. Once a T month I have one brought out, and they face this in repayment for that. I send the HD along to their different embassies and trade legations out here on the Verge, so they know what's happening, and why, but not who is doing it. She's the last of them." Below the woman had picked up the weapon, but as if she'd never held one in her life. As this was happening, the announcer was talking about her; name, rank, ship she had been on when captured. Then the rationalization that she was getting what she deserved just because she was born in Manticore.

Across the arena, another door smoothly opened, and two and a half meters of horror pounced out. A Beowulf Dire-wolf; one of the fiercest predators in the League. The woman screamed, backing into the sealed door behind her, then she spun, dropping the weapon, pounding on the door, screaming for release. Behind her the animal paced angrily, snarling, then he turned toward his victim.

As someone who had spent most of her life on Beowulf, Lori knew what would happen even before it did. Except for nature preserves where people could see the animals via remotes, the Dire-wolf was extinct. Predators on Old Earth over hundreds of thousands of years had learned that killing a human being led to swift retribution. There, except for the old ones too weak to hunt properly, no predator attacked man unless desperate. But it had been less than two millennia for those predators. They had not had time for that Darwinian lesson to passed on the unborn.

Which is why anyone who wanted to enter those preserves to see the animals up close were required to first watch videos of people who had been so foolish before, then sign a release. Like the bears native to North America in their National Parks, the Dire-wolves had learned to recognize that the vehicle was inedible. But if they saw a human in it; as those Earth animals had learned to recognize the coolers people used to transport their food, they were quite capable of ripping the roof off the ground car to get to the meal that had been delivered.

Like any school child, she had watched the take on those remotes, seen the animal in all it's savage beauty in it's native element. But she had been struck by the fact that the Dire-wolf shared one thing in common with Old Earth's domestic cat. Like that smaller animal, it liked to play with it's food before killing it.

Above the arena there were screens with all of the different views. One came from the hall beyond the door she had been thrust through, and you could read the terror in her eyes. While the audience here probably couldn't hear it, she knew that the video feed from that angle probably recorded every word she screamed. The Dire-wolf padded over behind her; she was too busy trying to convince whoever held that camera to let her out to know what was about to happen. He cocked his head, then casually swatted her, opening her back in bloody seams. The woman had locked her fingers on the grill, so it did not fling her across the sandy arena. But she dropped to her knees as her back was broken by that almost gentle blow. Lori looked away until Vince grabbed her chin and forced her to watch.

Jade was standing a few meters away, head down, refusing to look. But as the woman being savaged began to scream in pain, Jade's head went back and she echoed them until the man holding her cuffed her into silence.

It was neither swift nor pretty. The animal broke both of her arms before he could get her away from the grill, and that was early in the 'entertainment'. Finally the woman stopped screaming and writhing away, and the animal became bored. Lori prayed to all the gods of man that the woman had died from blood loss or shock. But as the jaws clamped down ripping open her abdomen, the woman gave one last scream.

Lomax pressed a button on the console before him, and they could hear the crunch of bones, the mewling growl of the Dire-wolf as it fed, the whimpers that blessedly fell silent as the woman died. He turned back to the prisoners. "Tomorrow morning, love. But your friends haven't seen what's going to happen to _him_ yet."


	8. A Family Born in Fire and Blood

Remember what I said at the start of the last chapter? She isn't done with me yet...

**A Family Born in Fire and Blood**

Lomax had to wait until they cleaned out the arena floor. It didn't take long; just for the dire-wolf to finish feeding, raking out the gnawed bones and gobbets of flesh, then hosing it down. The drain in the center of the room helped, though the stains showed it wasn't the first time it had been used this way.

He was busy listening into his far flung empire in the system. The prisoners were merely kept to see exactly how weak they were in comparison. He stripped off the earpiece as a fanfare sounded.

"Here's your friend's fate." Lomax motioned, standing to look down into the arena. The door that had been used by the dead woman opened, and another woman emerged. She was unlike her predecessor; as different as a common house cat was compared to a panther. She wasn't huge, just under two meters in height, but she was a very well developed woman with sleek muscles where they showed on her bare arms. Her black hair was braided down her back, with a piece of wire holding it tied. The woman stopped a pace and a half from the door, looking up into the stands. She looked as if she was going to go after those people up there after she was done in the arena, and her smile told everyone here she'd enjoy the carnage she imagined.

Someone must have shouted at her from behind the door, because she glanced over a sleek shoulder, then looked away, ignoring whoever it was. But Lori had trained for over a decade in the martial arts. The woman was merely letting whoever it was make the first mistake. A hand with a stun rod slid through the small grate, the head snapping as electricity arced in warning. She ignored it.

The person slid his arm through the grill, thrusting with the weapon. But her casual manner was a sham. She swayed like a reed in a sudden breeze, and the rod shot past her. Her hand clamped on his, and they could hear a thin scream as her grip smashed it. She reached up, catching the falling rod, then spun, her arm shooting out in a textbook fencing lunge to ram it back through the grate. The arm spasmed, shuddering beyond the door, then she let the rod go as the arm she held went limp. She pushed it back through the grate, spat on her enemy contemptuously, then paced across the arena to turn and face the door.

"Come on, whoever you are!" She shouted.

Lomax touched the control button. "You're not gaining any sympathy, Sasha." He purred.

"_Do pizdy._" She spat back. "_Ootebya nyetu peeki!_ I'd say come down here if you were a real man!" She laughed. "Maybe you don't speak Russian? You are a dickless wonder. Look like a man, think you're a man, but get fucked like a girl!"

He sighed, flicking the switch off. "Do you know what a Scrag is?" He asked rhetorically. He pointed at the woman. "That is why they lost Earth's last Great War. Because they were made so goddamned superior to the rest of us and tend to think with their balls instead of their brains. She blew a shipment for me; shot up the wrong group of men at the meet." He pressed the switch again. "Oh no, my pet, I have something else in mind for you." A staff thrust through the door, then was flung at her. She caught it negligently, flourishing it like an oversized baton, then set the end of the two meter staff on the floor.

The door opened again, and another woman entered. She was a shade over two meters tall, and like her opponent, was well muscled. Her facial features looked like one of the ancient African races, but her skin was a peaches and cream color with blonde tightly curled hair. The door closed behind her, and she merely watched the first woman calmly.

Again he muted it. "This will be good. Ncamisile is from Ndebele, one of the Mfecane worlds. Heavy gravity makes them built like tanks. Those who left their world for military service outperform anyone from anywhere. Until she ran afoul of me, that bitch was a gunnery sergeant in the Sollie Marines." He flicked the switch. "You both know what to do, but the audience voted a change up in the rules. Kill your opponent and you go free today. Or you die. Your choice."

The larger woman just looked up toward the booth, then back at her opponent. Sasha swung the staff down into a barrier before her, then contemptuously raised one hand to signal Ncamisile to come on. The large woman seemed to sigh, then began to pad forward. Like Sasha she moved like something primal, and a few meters before she got close enough, Sasha leaped forward, spinning the staff into a series of lighting strikes with either end. Against a man of her own weight, it would have ended there. Lori had watched sparring with any weapon a man could pick up for a hand to hand battle, so she was able to follow it easily. Instead of taking the blows on the flat of her forearms, the larger woman was deflecting them away at an angle to lessen the damage, even though she had welts of bruises within seconds.

Then she slammed her fist like an ax into the center of the staff, snapping it in half. Sasha leaped back, and now she came in like an eskrimador, each arm windmilling to slam blows in from the much shorter distance, but almost twice as fast. Against someone less agile and strong, it would have been her match yet again. But after a few moments Ncamisile caught first one, then the other stick in her hands, and her foot lashed out, punching into the smaller woman's stomach. She flew backwards riding the blow, the sticks still in Ncamisile hands. Instead of following through, she tossed them aside, and as Sasha rolled to her feet, she repeated Sasha's 'come on' gesture.

The smaller woman's eyes narrowed. "You can kill me, but you can never defeat me, _Pizdi_!" She moved forward, and took a stance, then flowed to the attack. Ncamisile only blocked, catching kicks on her armor hard thighs, hand strikes on her forearms, just enduring the pounding until Sasha was staggering in fatigue. Only then did her hand snap out like a trout catching a mayfly, and lifted Sasha off her feet by her neck.

Her hands caught that wrist, but her eyes were still defiant. For a long moment the crowd merely sat there. Then they screamed, and the thumbs down flashed across the arena. Ncamisile looked around, then at her opponent again. Sasha merely glared, then spat in her face.

The large woman set her almost gently on her feet, then gave her a comradely pat that slammed the tired woman to her knees and turned, headed back toward the door.

Lomax slapped button on the console. "Kill her."

Ncamisile looked up at the booth again. "No."

"Fine. You've just committed suicide. Bring them both up here." He switched off. He looked at his prisoners, and gave a wry grin as if to say, 'see what I have to put up with?'. "We don't have enough cages for you all just yet. So we'll find somewhere to put you until we do." He looked at Vince. "Put them in the old kitchen for the moment. They can keep the other guy company until their accommodations are ready. Take as many men as you need, and give them all guns, just in case."

It took only moments. Ncamisile came in already cuffed, carrying Sasha. Then they with ten men covering them with Solarian made riot stunners and what looked like antique shotguns and revolvers were escorted to a heavy door. They were shoved inside, and the door slammed.

Lori looked around. It looked like any small kitchen used by a hole in the wall restaurant, and beyond it they could hear the unsatisfied crowd leaving.

"I wanted to wait until we were alone, but it looks like me might not have that chance, Lori." She looked over at Henry. "Were you out of your tiny little mind trying to rescue her that way?" He nodded toward Jade, who again, was merely crumpled in a corner.

"I admit I could have planned it better."

"That, is an understatement." He commented.

"I'm sure you could have done so much better." She snapped.

"Of course. Unlike you I wouldn't have charged in like Don Quixote with the windmill."

"So you are no doubt planning how we're going to get out of here, alive, mind you."

"Oh I have a plan for that." Her head snapped around. He gave a grin. "However that plan assumes we can get out of these cuffs and through that door. Until then, it's a bit up in the air."

Sasha looked around, then up as Ncamisile, who had set her gently on the floor, and now knelt beside her. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why didn't you kill me?"

Ncamisile sighed. "What you said after I disarmed you." She looked at the smaller woman. "My name in Zulu means 'she has defeated us'. I knew I could kill you at any time. But I could never defeat such a spirit."

Sasha stared at her, then gave a dry chuckle. "Then this is your lucky day, because I can get us out of these." She rattled her cuffs, then turned her head. "If you straighten out the wire in my hair?" The larger woman did so with a bemused expression, then handed it to Sasha. With a few tweaks, she had formed it, and began moving the metal in the lock on her own wrist.

"Pardon me, but does you escape plan include me?" They looked at the man who was curled up in the opposite corner from Jade. "Because I think I might get the door open, assuming we can find what I need in the storeroom. That is if you don't mind a bit of damage to the premises in the process."

"It's not my kitchen." Lori replied. "What do you need?"

"I have a... flair for escaping under the right circumstances. If a couple of you would audit the storeroom," he rattled the cuffs, "oh, and get me out of these, we can be about it."

Shasha had picked her own cuffs, and began on Ncamisile's. Henry and Lori went into the small storeroom, and brought out what was there. It wasn't much; a partial two kilo bag of stale flour, about half of a one kilo bag of powdered sugar, and a small tin of teabags. The drawers gave them only a small tenderizing hammer.

The previous occupant perked up at the mention of tea. "Is there a kettle? Milk? Lemon?" When except for the kettle these were not found, he sighed. "Then I shall have to rough it. If you would be so good as to start the kettle?"

Lori started it as he stood rubbing his wrists. He looked at the dry goods with a smile. "Perfect. But I need something to ignite it." He went into the store room, and came back with a cup, and four small hot plates which he handed to Ncamisile. "Now if you would be good enough to rip the cords off of these, and the plug off all but one? Then strip about 3 centimeters of the insulation off the bare ends." He spun, snatching up the kettle before it could start whistling. He poured the cup full, added a spoon of sugar then took the bags and emptied them gently onto the counter, mixing the contents with his fingers, then pushed the mixture back into the larger bag. Then he took the cords, and braided the copper ends so that electricity would flow down them. Carefully, he gapped the end of the only remaining exposed wires, and plugged the cord in, talking to himself as he unplugged, narrowed the gap, and tried again. This time the electricity arced.

"Not perfect, but good enough." He looked around in the storeroom, but there was no outlet in there. He had them move the stove away from the wall, setting it so one edge was jammed against the counter. "So, we have everything."

"Everything except a name." Lori commented. "And a reason why we're all here together. Not to mention why we had to make you tea, but got none ourselves."

"Oh, I am so sorry, very forward of me. Nigel Shimboku." He stuck out his hand to be shaken. "As to why we are sharing the room, our friends are rather peeved with me. I had been a customer at their little casino, and discovered they were cheating rather shamelessly, so I decided to rectify the situation. Do you know what happens if you mix nitric acid and sugar in open air?" He looked around, but there was no reply. "What you get is a violent exothermic reaction. It burns, very hot. Just the thing if you place a bottle of acid, with an uncapped metal cigar tube in the throat of it full of sugar. Of course to make sure you don't end up in the fire, you need to time it right because the acid will eat away at the metal as well. That is done by using enough layers of shellac painted on the tube, allowed to dry, and repeating. I won't bore you with how many layers is equal to a minute.

"So I came by the other morning, and broke in while they were closed. I hacked the computer network, and rigged the deposits so that the next time they moved money into an account, it transferred all of the money into my account instead." He grinned. "I then had it transferred to a hard currency draft in Sollie credits, and delivered to a ship, the _Geatland _I think was it's name.

"However the thugs we are dealing with had found out what I had done, not the money, mind, but the damages I caused. So they picked me up before I could finish packing. I think they would be beyond irritation if they had known about the...withdrawal. As for the tea, Ducky, I have spent all day in here, without breakfast, lunch or dinner, and have missed teatime as well, so I felt I deserved a cuppa before we push off."

"What does acid and sugar have to do with that?" Henry asked.

Nigel looked affronted. "Well I couldn't very well let them find out they had been robbed. They might have stolen it back! So before I left, I left a bottle of acid with the tube up the spout in their liquor store room, in the midst of a case of brandy. When it burned, it ignited the liquor. Alcohol burns very well, you know, assuming you have a proof of 60 or better in it." He barked a laugh. "They were upset because of their occupation. You see, when you start demanding protection money, the first thing most thugs comment on is how flammable the premises are. And being part of crime syndicates means the local constabulary merely assume if you have a fire, it was caused by rivals, so the insurance companies won't pay off."

"You are certifiable." Henry commented, shaking his head.

Nigel shrugged. "We all have our little problems." He looked around. "So, who is the best at throwing things?"

"I am very good at it." Lori said.

"So, can you throw this, and hit right above the door?" He hefted the bag. It now weighed almost a kilo.

"I could hit the first man through the door right between the eyes with it."

"Oh we don't want that." Nigel commented. "If you do that, one of our opponents is injured, and the others will merely come in and beat us all to a pulp. That is why I said _above_ the door."

"Yes. But why above the door?"

"So we have a shower of flour and sugar dust, love. Now more importantly, can you do it from the prone position on the other side of that door? Because while I will have this nice heavy stove in the way, everyone else will have to be laying down on the floor in there when this happens."

"Yes, I can throw it from the ground."

"Then I will have you decide among yourselves who will kick the door closed when you do. Demarcation is very important."

Lori left the others to discuss it. Jade had been freed from the chains, but still cowered alone. When Lori touched her arm, the woman flinched back. "Leave me alone."

She knelt by the woman. "I'm sorry I got you in trouble, Jade."

"It isn't that. I have been praying for death for years." The woman looked up, then motioned to the ones behind Lori. "But now I have all of you on my conscience as well. All of you dying for a worthless bitch who has wanted to die since she was eleven." She looked away. "You should have left me to die."

Lori reached out, stroking the silken hair. "I couldn't do that. The instant I saw you, I had to at least try to save you." She whispered. "I have been looking for you and our sisters all my life. You are part of me as you have been since we were decanted." She caught the woman's chin, turning her pained eyes to look at her. "You are me if I had not been rescued at eight. You are me tormented almost beyond endurance merely in living as long as you have. I have had nightmares where I watched each of you being tormented, begging me to help, yet unable to help until today. I could no more walk away from you, leave you in this hell, than I could chop off my own hand. So if I die, it will be because it's my time, not because you caused it. And if you asked the others, they would agree.

"But listen to me." She grasped the woman by the shoulders, turning her to face her fully. "We may die. There are no guarantees in life. But we will die free, and like Sasha in the arena, spitting in Death's face when we do. Because I won't give those bastards the satisfaction of winning."

Jade looked her in the eyes. "You will die to save me?"

"I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again."

"How do you know?" was the whispered reply.

She chuckled sadly. "I asked the same thing of my father when I was eight, and I will add that as long as I am alive, it will be as I say." She chucked her twin under the chin. "Now we have to get you into the storeroom, because I think this lunatic might be able to pull this off, and I for one want to be in a safe place when it happens."

**A little basic chemistry**

They had waited until the new cages could be delivered, but finally Vince was coming to collect their new occupants. He nodded to the men still standing outside the door, and they raised their weapons, getting ready. In fact he'd brought four more with him just in case. Both Sasha and Ncamisile were death on two feet, and he fully expected them to resist. He nodded again, and one of them grabbed the handle, flinging the door fully open so no one could have hidden behind it. Vince stepped forward, and his forehead furrowed. There was no one in the room, but the storeroom door was open. Then something came at him, and he ducked. The missile, a bag of some kind hit above him, and a shower of white dust fell toward the floor.

He laughed. _Stupid assholes couldn't even hit their target_. He stepped through, and noticed a hand come up, and almost negligently push a plug into an outlet by the stove then drop back down. The gentle fall of dust reached the arcing wires, and all hell reigned.

It's what is called a fuel-air or dust explosion. Back on ancient Earth, men had discovered that they had to wait when emptying grain silos before entering them, because sometimes the dust in the air would ignite and explode. As innovative as men were, it didn't take them long to work out that any kind of fuel properly mixed with air would cause the same effect, though it took them centuries before the military developed bombs that used the process. One type, called MOAB, or the Mother Of All Bombs used a ten thousand kilo tank of propane and a simple igniter, creating an explosion that rivaled the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki when deployed during what was called Desert Storm. In comparison, this was merely a firecracker.

In the storeroom, the door had barely closed when it blew back off the hinges and was imbedded as shards in the opposite wall. For a long moment, there was nothing but coughing as the smoke, which smelled like a mixture of burned toast and caramel, filled it. Suddenly alarms went off followed by a flood of water from the sprinkler system.

Lori staggered to her feet. She didn't need to look out of the doorway, a good chunk of the walls on both sides of where it had been had also been reduced to kindling which was now briskly burning. The same thing had happened to the door Vince had opened and it's walls. She dragged Henry to his feet, then helped up Jade. "Ncamisile?"

"I am all right." The woman came out of the smoke like leviathan from the depths. She led Sasha. "But when we get out of here, I want a word with that maniac."

"I agree. But let's leave him at least partially alive when we do." she looked toward the stove. "Nigel?"

The stove had been blown back toward it's old enclosure, jamming tightly enough that Nigel couldn't move it. He waved a hand. "A little help, if you don't mind?" Ncamisile grabbed the stove, flipping it away. Nigel waved his hand in front of his face. "Oh I love the smell of burned toast in the morning!"

They swiftly gathered the weapons their 'escort' had no use for any more. Lori recognized the pistols as what looked like replicas of the old ten millimeter Colt Peacemakers just about every man carried here along with copies of the old Ithaca 37 shotgun and even a pair of Winchester 76 knockoffs. When it came to the Right to bear arms, Texans took it very seriously, and no local politician would have survived very long by suggesting the citizens did not have that right. However since they were on a station, the bullets were frangible, shattering on impact with anything, so that bullets didn't whiz merrily through a wall and kill someone on the other side, or by chance cause an explosion that would blow open the station.

"That way leads to the docks." Nigel pointed.

"But we're going _that_ way." Lori commented, pointing back the way they came.

"Really now. You want to go back to where they captured you?" Nigel looked the other way.

Lori sighed. "Back to the office we woke up in. The man has too many connections in the government here. If we just head for the docks, it's escaped convicts, an escaped slave and murderers." She motioned at the dead men. "We need a diversion, and I think I know how to arrange one, or maybe two." She flipped the gun in her hand, extending the butt to Nigel.

He took it gingerly. "A firearm. Never had much use for them before." He slid it into his pants to one side. Lori took a stunner and a pistol, then tucked the tenderizing hammer into the back of her own trousers. "Really, Ducky; the hammer will only work if you can get them to hold still long enough to tenderize their head."

They jogged down the hall toward the door they had entered through. It opened, and without pausing, Lori snatched out the hammer, and flung it overhand toward the man who stood there, surprised. He went down with a gasp as it struck dead center between his eyes, and she stomped on his throat. The hammer was snatched back up again, and Nigel shrugged. "All right, I stand corrected."

They reached the arena. "How do we get to the room they have the animals in?" She demanded. Ncamisile pointed, and they ran that way. She kicked the door without stopping, and it flew backwards. Nika aimed, using her forearm as a rest, and fired a shot.

Someone shouted behind them, and one shot rang out. They looked at Nigel, who stood there with one arm out straight as if he were on a dueling field. He ,walked over to the body, took the rifle from his arms, then noticed the attention motioning with the pistol. "I didn't say I didn't know how to use it. Just that I never had much use for them." He stuck the sidearm into his belt, and jacked the lever arm. They all looked at the neat hole in the dead man's forehead.

The room was the size of a standard cargo bay, and almost two dozen full cages were there. She recognized only four of the animals, the dire-wolf, a Tiger from Earth, a Hexapuma from Sphinx, and what looked like a Kodiak Max from Gryphon. Everything look lethal however. "Now if we can arrange to release all of the locks at the same time, and get away before they do, I think this would be a very good start to diversion one." Lori mused.

"You do know it's a felony under law to release a dangerous animal into a habitat without adequate safeguards." Nika commented.

"It's not my station. They can charge me if they catch me."

Nika shrugged. "It's just illegal, that's all."

"Then there should be a law against using people to death for entertainment."

"I do so love to hear petty bickering, but if you will cover the doors and allow me?" Nigel went to the desk the dead man had been sitting at, shoving the body aside. He brought up the menu, then began typing. He motioned toward the large cargo door, and Nika followed by Henry ran to cover it. When it opened, they crouched on either side. A few moments and three dead thugs later, he hit a final key. "There. The cages will all start opening in one minute."

Lori ducked as a hail of shotgun pellets came through the door she was guarding with Sasha which led back toward where they had been. "You couldn't give us maybe a little more time than that?"

"Sorry. The system only allows one cage to be opened at a time, so I had to set them to open in sequence about five seconds apart, and if I didn't set it to open one first, the others would have stayed locked. Bloody safeguards."

"Then we don't have a lot of time!" She rolled into the center of the doorway, the shotgun emptying itself in a sustained blast. Then Sasha leaped up over the body of the man that had been pinning them down. "Nika, Henry! We. Are, Leaving!" The pair doubled across the room, to stand behind her. "Nika! Which way to the gladiator's quarters?"

"That way. And did you call me Nika?"

"Yes, sorry."

"Don't be. Common diminutive of my name back home. People are always stumbling over my full name out here." She caught the door, wedging it closed behind them. At first there was shouting, then suddenly screaming as the roar of something she had not identified came out of it's cage, followed by other screams and roars that finally ended in silence. "You know, man thinks he's the pinnacle of evolution, but put a man and an animal on equal terms..." Lori gave the woman a manic grin, then motioned forward.

They ran around the arena seating area to the opposite side, and again Nika smashed open the door. There were as many cages here as there had been on the opposite side. But these held pairs of men and women. Sasha shot the man who was standing guard, and snatched up the ring of mag keys. One of the men in a cage reached out, and she slapped his hand aside. "Wait your turn." She turned to the opposite side, and walked down the row, opening doors. Nikka and Henry stood at the rack of edged and blunt weapons they would have been equipped with, and as they streamed out, she ripped the locking bar away, and they began handing them out.

The guy who had tried to take the keys tried to snatch one of the revolvers from Lori, who promptly backhanded him. "Get your own."

"We have to complete our mission." He snarled back. "Lomax is going to die."

"Get in line." Lori replied. The man glared at her, then stuck out his tongue, showing his slave barcode. "If you're in my way, you're roadkill."

She looked at him, and the two that stood behind him. "We need to get these people to the docks and find a ship to steal to get them out of the system. As for Lomax," She stuck out her own tongue. "He owned my sister. Intended to feed her to his animals, and rape me into submission. So I think I have precedence here."

"We have precedence." Nika commented. She had lowered the shotgun she carried so that it aimed at the three men. "Unless you want to argue."

Lori sighed. "Look... what is your name?"

"Sean. Sean Jaeger."

"all right, Sean, getting these people out needs your expertise."

"Without guns?"

"How good a shot are you?" Sasha asked sarcastically. "While they look like street clothes, all of the _Sookum Sin_ are wearing ballistic cloth. Nothing but a pulser will penetrate it, and we don't have one."

"Not so." Nika reached over, taking a short sword off the almost depleted rack. She lowered it, and the blade slid neatly through the chest of the dead man on the floor. She then hacked at the body, and again, it cut easily. "Twenty in the Solarian Marines." She commented. "I know what to use to kill someone whatever they're wearing." She flipped the sword toward the larger of the two men behind Sean who caught it almost negligently.

"And you expect them to just let us wander on through to a ship?"

"I expect they will be very busy with all of the animals we released a minute or so ago." She jerked her thumb toward the people behind her. "And almost four dozen _we_- not you- rescued who will fight for their freedom from this hell. People who will pick up guns as we did from those stupid enough to stand between them and freedom."

Sean smiled. "Where you headed after this?"

"I hadn't planned that far ahead. I would head home, but Beowulf would probably be forced to return me here for trial."

"Try Smoking Frog, the Maya System capitol. I know Jeremy X would love to have you working for him." He motioned. "Come, brothers, we have people to save."

She stopped him, flipped the pistol and handed it to him along with both stunners. "Good luck."

They split up.


	9. Goodbye and Hello

**a very bad day gets worse**

Lomax wanted to scream. He had tried to follow it all, but it was too confusing. He had watched Vince open the kitchen door, gloating over his plans. There had been something, a white fog of some kind, then an explosion that had shattered the cameras in the hall. Then they had poured out of the hall door into the arena, and Nika had smashed her way into the animal storeroom.

He had directed men from both inside and outside his area, but some of them were damn good shots, and seemed to know where every camera was. Then he'd gotten reports that the animals were loose and running amok on the station. Damn it, not even the palms he'd greased would keep this quiet! He would end up paying a lot, and probably have to kill every one of the goddamned things, or the Rangers might decide to take official notice.

That could be... painful for a long time.

If that hadn't been bad enough, those people, went and freed, then armed his gladiators! Sure they only had swords, knives, spears and staffs, but following in the carnage of the animals released earlier, they were cutting, and now that they had begun grabbing weapons from bodies, _blasting_ their way toward the Outland docks, where they could claim asylum. There were half a dozen ships, all hyper capable there. He should have killed those Ballroom bastards rather than keep them for his play, because they were the ones leading _that_ charge.

But he was more worried about the ones he'd just taken. The little firebug, the bitch who'd disrupted his whorehouse, Ncamisile and Sasha, he especially worried about those two. They had left the gladiator's quarters, then dropped completely off the camera net. He ground his teeth. He wanted the lot of them captured and when he did, he'd personally feed them to the menagerie he'd have to restock with his own hands! Did they even know how much they had cost him just freeing all of those animals? Not only reputation, but think about the money! That _Säbel-Löwe_ he'd just gotten through customs (On their endangered species list!)all the way from New Berlin had cost as much as the Hexapuma, Kodiak Max and Earth Tiger combined! He wanted blood!

They had been off the screens for ten minutes now. Ten minutes they could use to get anywhere on the sta-

He stopped. He hadn't seen much when they were freeing the gladiators. But the woman had stuck her tongue out in reply to the Ballroom man. Then they had headed out and split up. But the ones he wanted to find had vanished off camera right after they reentered the arena area. Where did he _not_ have cameras?

The air vents. They had to have climbed into the air vents! That meant in ten minutes they could be... He hit the button on his com panel. "Ramsey! Get my ship warmed up. File a flight plan to... Corregidor. Tell orbital control I have to leave in a rush. Buy the earliest slot."

"Yes, sir."

"And contact my mouthpiece. Have him cover this up as best he can, spend what he has to. Have him send me a message there when he has. If he can't, he's to relocate there."

"Yes sir."

He opened his safe, and took out his personal weapon, a Sollie made needle gun. He'd pick up a couple of his guys _en route_ to the old dispatch boat he had bought, and when they were caught or killed and this blew over, he'd come back. He stuffed his briefcase with the bearer bonds and stock certificates in the safe.

There was a polite knock on the door, and he shouted he was coming, as he came around the desk. He opened the door, and had a moment to see the small bitch that had started this ball rolling, then grunted as she kicked him in the balls; _hard_.

He sagged to his knees, and the woman broke his thumb as she took the needle gun. She looked at it, flipped the safety off, and aimed it at his right eye. "Any last words?"

"I have money." He gasped around the pain.

"I would have expected this..._sihlama_ to use that first." Nika commented from where she stood. "It means used shit." she translated helpfully. "I think something better than that is needed."

The barrel was close enough she could have put the round through the pupil of his eye into his optic nerve without hitting the orbit bone. "And a ship, I have a ship! It's docked at my personal slip right down there!" He motioned toward the right hand end of the hall.

"As much as you want to kill him right here, we could use a ship to escape." Henry said from behind her.

"Yeah." She cocked her head, then moved the gun. "But a son of a bitch like this probably has a code to unlock the navigational data base, or to allow it to drop the docking clamps. So I think he had best come with us."

"Maybe not all of him." Sasha commented. Of them all, only she had brought a knife, hell, she carried a bloody short sword! She was testing the edge, looking at him speculatively. "If it's just a palm or thumbprint, we could bring his hands along-"

"No, voice recognition! You need my voice! You need me alive!"

"Nika?" He felt a hammer like hand club him into unconsciousness.

Nika picked him up, threw him over her shoulder, and then pointed the same direction. "He did say that way, correct?"

They loped down the hall. It had been dusty and moldy in the air vent system, but it had gotten them less than a hundred meters from where Lomax had been in his office. Most of the people they might have had to fight were now behind them. They came around a corner, and ran right into two men in Brown and green uniform colors. Henry moved into the man on the right as Lori went after the man on the left. If they had tried to use their hands, they might have stood a chance, but the man Henry attacked tried to raise the large weapon in his hands, and his partner dropped the flat drum he held in one hand to go for his rifle.

They didn't live long enough to regret their decision.

"Wait." Nika handed off her burden to Sasha. "Oh you beauty." She whispered as she picked up the weapon. "Plamya grenade launcher. They still have these in service on Novaya Rodina."

"Isn't that planet in the Old League? Settled by people from the old Soviet Union?" Henry asked.

"Second Soviet Union." Sasha replied. If the limp body was a problem, she didn't seem to notice. "That planet you're thinking of is merely Rodina, Motherland in the old Russian language. But some felt the idea of Communism didn't get a fair chance, so they settled Novaya Rodina not far from here." She looked at the weapon. "The one thing they brought were the diagrams of the weapons of that long ago time. It was good that they did; economically the planet is in the toilet after only three T centuries, so they make their money by selling off the weapon designs they can't build anymore." She sighed. "I gpt there, expecting something better. What do I find? _Farms_, with the Commisars still dictating from the cities! _Nekulturny_."

Nika gathered the weapon up. While the man carrying it had been struggling with the thirty plus kilo weight, she lifted it as if it weighed nothing. "3cm grenades, 400 rounds per minute at full automatic. Thirty rounds per belt, with the drum magazine instead of the standard belt." She sounded like a kid at Christmas. "Compared to a Sollie design, it's a piece of junk; too heavy." She mused looking at the base of one of the grenades. "Standard shipboard fragmentation. If the idiot had actually gotten a chance to fire it, he would have blown himself to hell along with us."

"Where did a criminal organization buy these?"

"They didn't." Sasha pointed at the bodies. "Ranger Seguin colors. Local police on the station rotate through the Ranger's Guard detachments."

"So we just killed two _cops_?" Lori asked.

"Just another band of thugs out here." Nika replied, throwing the weapon to her shoulder like an oversized rifle. "Who do you think Lomax was paying off for the use of the entertainment channel for the games? Everyone who ended up as a Gladiator or animal food disappeared long before they met their fate. All thanks to Seguin. When you were 'tried', Seguin notified your ship that you were arrested. Judgment is swift out here, and Beowulf only sends a ship once a year, so if your complains, so what? Both you and Henry probably died in a shuttle accident _ en route _to your trial, they just took a large enough skin sample to get DNA so they can verify it from the wreckage." She snorted. "They have a lot of shuttle accidents here. Way too many to be believable."

There was an explosion behind them, and they all jerked around to face it.

"I think Ranger Seguin has been catching too much flak from the League. Lomax tends to hold a grudge and has all the restraint of a rabid dog. Maybe he pissed off too many Sollie companies, but every one of us," Nigel waved at Nika and Sasha, "and all of those who are escaping the other way were already reported dead, so there are going to be a _lot_ of explanations demanded, probably by OFS warships. All the idiot did was speed up their schedule for assimilating Eyes of Texas.

"So Seguin has decided to clean Lomax's clock, blaming it all on him in the hopes that the OFS will be satisfied, and we've not only caused this mess, but are caught in the middle, so we have to die and have bodies left to show them." He commented. "So if we could pick up the pace a bit?" Lori snatched up the bandolier of ammo drums along with the rifle (An AK74 knockoff, probably from the same planet)and it's ammunition, handing them to Sasha, and led the way.

Their luck ran out a few hundred meters further on. She opened the door, squawked in alarm, and back pedaled into the others as a huge bullet blew through the door and ricocheted off the wall.

"So we can't go that way." Shasha commented.

Henry jerked his thumb toward their back trail. "We sure can't go that way."

Lori sighed. "Darwin Awards time, and this time we lose and have to start over."

"Start over?" Nigel asked.

"I'm a Buddhist. You start over by being reborn."

He looked at her as if expecting she was joking. "I'm a Christian, and playing a harp for the rest of eternity has never been my ideal." He looked at Nika, who was looking up rather than in either impossible direction. "Nika, have you already accepted death?"

"I was thinking of another way out." She motioned. They all looked up, at a catwalk mounted on struts from the ceiling five meters above.

"Great, how do we climb up there?" Lori asked.

"How much do you weigh?" Nika asked.

"Hmn? About forty-two kilos-" Nika had set down the grenade launcher, and snatched Lori up, throwing her straight up. Lori squawked again, hands desperately trying to find something to grab on. There was a bar, and her hands caught it, chest slamming on the catwalk itself, leaving her dangling in midair from the railing.

"Damn, it worked!" Nika cried out gaily. "Oh, and you lied. Forty-two kilos my ass."

Lori glared at her. "When we get out of here, you and I are going to sit down and discuss what the word communication means."

"If you hook your legs around the bar like the catcher on a trapeze, I can throw the rest of you up there."

Lori got into position before she recognized the flaw in the logic. "But what about you?"

"No one else is strong enough-"

"I know that! But when we're all up here, what about getting you up here?"

"Not going to happen. Catch." Nika picked up Jade, and flung her up where Lori could catch her and guide her to the catwalk.

Lori cursed. "We've gone through too much to just leave you here to die."

"Uh, Lori-"

"Not now, Jade!"

"Someone has to stay behind and keep them occupied. I got elected." Nika looked around, grabbed Nigel, who was the next in size, and flung him up.

As he crawled upward, Lori still wasn't done. "Damn it, we get out together or not at all."

"I say, Ducky, we could-"

"Shut up, Nigel!"

Nika motioned to Sasha. She looked up, slung her rifle, and Nika dropped down with her hands clasped. The smaller woman stuck her foot in the cupped palms, and was flung up high enough that she caught the rail on her own, swarming upward.

"Damn it, why aren't you listening to me?" Lori screamed.

"Lori, we can-"

"Stow it, Sasha!"

Below Henry was standing with one foot in the large hands, and an instant later, was up on the catwalk. Lori wanted to scream. "I am not letting you die alone!"

"Lori-"

"Not now, Henry!" Below her Nika had dropped Lomax, and using her own belt and his, made him a bundle with ankles and wrists tied together.

"Henry, help her." The man was flung up like a sack of garbage, and Henry caught the strap, slamming into the catwalk as he took the weight. Lori put her hands under him, shoving upward as Henry pulled the body up.

"Nika, damn it!"

"Hoist a pint for me, kid."

A hand snaked the needle pistol out of her belt as she dropped back down. Nika had already gone prone, aiming the weapon back down the hall. Someone stuck his head around the corner, and ducked back as a grenade flew, blasting the end of the hall into wreckage. She rode the recoil as she sent six more after it in the next second.

"We're going to die, you know." Nika commented, changing out the spent magazine and slapping another home.

"No! We're all getting out of here, or none of us!"

"Acceptable losses." Nika replied. Lori felt for a gun on her belt, but they had been throwing the empty weapons aside as they ran, and someone- She looked up. Where the hell was-

"Excuse me." She spun, the hammer in her hand, ready to throw, and stared at Nigel.

"I am sure you had this stirring dying speech to give. But if you don't want to ride the ship down in flames, maybe we should get a move on."

"How..."

"Didn't you think that the catwalk had to connect from room to room? I just took your needle gun and cleaned out the team ahead of us." He motioned. "Remember the comment you made? About communication? Maybe you should practice what you preach."

Lori stood. "You son of a bitch!" She slapped him, then grabbed his collar and kissed him. "Move!"

He stared after her, then was snatched up by Nika who also gave him a kiss on the cheek. She looked back. "Coming?"

"Oh, right, right." He stopped at the first body, picking up a bandolier of hand grenades. He looked at one, changing the setting on it from S (Safe) past the ten one second marks, to the letter I (Impact). Then he flipped it so the striker was down, and jammed it beside the handle of the door they had just passed and thumbed the activator before following.

**A destination**

The last bit was almost easy; especially when Nigel left a surprise at each door. They marveled at not only his fiendish delight, but also in his sick sense of humor. One grenade had been stuck under the body of one of the men who were still ahead of them, but with the pin pulled, and set for a one second delay. Another set to impact hanging by a spider's web crossing the hall. The Ranger's men had discovered that pushing too close got them killed, so they were in pursuit, but not pressing too hard.

Nigel had been ecstatic when they passed through a hydroponics section right before the last cargo space. He had dragooned everyone into helping as he dumped bags of fertilizer into an empty mixer vat, poured in a barrel of corn oil and another of fish oil (think of it, Fish and Chips from Hell!) from the cargo space, then turned it on. "When it mixes, it will get thicker, and the engine will seize up and shut down." He explained absently. Taking his last two grenades, he put one on either side of the passage between the mixers with one flush up against the barrel, the other jammed into a cubbyhole on the opposite side.

"Do you go anywhere without blowing it to hell?" Henry asked as he was wiring them into place.

"Of course I do." Nigel replied equably. "Sometimes, I burn them down instead. There, let's go."

They came into the dock, and before them were two men and the boarding tube. Lori used her now thoroughly mangled hammer to take down one, Henry moved in, and a flurry of motion later, was standing alone. They ran past the still moaning men. "Me first." Nika dropped the grenade launcher; there were only two rounds remaining anyway, and dived down the tube. There was a brief scream of alarm, then she shouted that it was clear. Sasha threw the now awake but bleary Lomax up the tube, and dived after. Jade went, then Henry, followed by Lori.

"You left the gun back there!" She shouted at Nika, who stood by the hatch ready to close it.

"Of course I did. You didn't kill either of those men, and one of them will probably try to use it." She closed the hatch, then it reverberated as the last grenades exploded not in the ship, but in the tube. They could see the tube ripping away, the two men flying into space. "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."

They ran through to the bridge, where Lomax had been seated at the navigation console. When given a choice between being thrown back off the ship into space, he spoke into the security system, and she hummed to life. They blew the docking clamps, and the good ship _Palomino_ pulled away from the station into even more madness. On the opposite side of the station, all of the merchant ships had already broken free, and were outbound. The navy (A couple of LACs) were trying to force them back to the docks, but the airwaves were filled with captains threatening to bring the OFS back in force if any were fired upon, and in the confusion, the warships didn't even know which of them might have escapees on them. _Palomino_ was lost in the confusion, and made her transit into hyper before the first message reached her ordering her to return.

"Merciful Buddha, I'm glad that's over." Lori whispered as she stood away from the helm. As the only qualified bridge officer she had first set the destination, then taken the helm. The last they had seen of the station was when an explosion ripped part of it apart behind them, Nigel's going away present. "Now, do we actually have a destination?"

"Verdant Vista." Henry commented.

She stared at him. "Wait a minute, we go through all if this hell to rescue a slave, and you _want_ to go to a planet run by _slavers_?"

He sat her down at the communications panel and ran the news from the day before. The Audubon Ballroom had organized an attack, and captured the station at Verdant Vista, and some fresh faced _girl_ had stopped the slaves below from slaughtering too many of the overseers. Then a coalition formed from a flotilla of Sollie destroyers from the Maya Sector and a lone Manticoran heavy cruiser had forced a Mesan task group to back down instead of suppressing that rebellion. It had happened almost two weeks before, but someone in that group was probably still in orbit. She grinned, going back to the navigation console, and set the course.

"Where's Jade?"

"I left her in the berthing area." Henry told her.

"Then if you take over here, I will see to her." She nibbled at her lip. "The first few days after they freed me were rough. I think I can keep her together until we get some medical support. If nothing else, we can sedate her for a while, or at least tranquilize her."

She stood, walking aft. Jade wasn't in any of the cabins, or the mess hall. She began searching, then opened the hatch leading to the tiny sickbay. She screamed for help, but it was already too late.

–

Lori stared at the bulkhead, deep in misery. She couldn't make herself go back in there. She'd go mad if she did. Jade had used a fruit knife from the galley; modern medicine didn't use a lot of actual metal blades beyond Eyes of Texas these days. Maybe she had gone there originally for one, but the kitchen utensil had done quite well enough. But once she had chosen the place, she had returned, and there, alone, she had slit her wrists. While they were in the midst of their escape, she had found her own way out.

Nika came out, and gently handed her a pad. She stared at it uncomprehending. Nika took it back, activated it, and handed it back.

_I'm sorry. _

_I know you said you would die to save me, and you have saved me; never forget that. But you can't be there every second of my life, and the idea that I might end up back in that nightmare is like a weight on my shoulders._

_'Freedom is terrifying. How do you stand it? Part of me even now wants to go back to what I understand, as insane as that thought is. Or go on. Somewhere I won't be so afraid. So if I am truly free, I have the right to make this choice._

_I'm sorry. But it is my choice_

Lori still couldn't deal with it years later. Nika had to rip the pad from her hands as she cried.

**New missions**

The dispatch boat came over the hyper wall, and headed toward the planet. There were few ships there at the moment, a Sollie light cruiser, a pair of smaller ships that might be frigates, and a huge monster cruiser that read HMS _Gauntlet_. One of the frigates was charging toward them like a pugnacious chihuahua. Lori was in the captain's chair.

"We're being hailed by... ASLF _Pottawatomie_ _Creek_?" Sasha said, confused. The name was badly mangled because she had never heard of it.

"Bring it up."

"SS _Palomino_, this is _Pottawatomie_ _Creek._ If you're under a Mesan registry, you are ordered to depart immediately, or your vessel will be seized as a legitimate prize."

"Recording"

"Recording, Lori."

"This is no longer _Palomino_, we seized her in the Tahoe system, Eyes of Texas during our escape from there." She shrugged. "Haven't come up with a good name yet. We have a delivery for the Mantie Cruiser."

"On the chip!"

"Send it." The delay was ten minutes at this range, but was becoming shorter. 19 minutes later, they received _Pottawatomie_ _Creek's_ permission to close. As they reached two light minutes, They received a message from _Gauntlet_.

"HMS Gauntlet, Lieutenant Gohr here. The _Pottawatomie_ _Creek_ said you have a delivery?" The woman looked at another screen. "We have no contact in that system, or that planet."

"Understood. Have you heard of a Manticoran ship named _Castle View_?"

The reply was cold. "Yes, she was lost over four T years ago to pirates."

"We have the man who admitted to slaughtering her crew, captured on the station over Eyes Of Texas. Where do you want him delivered?"

The next face was a man. He looked out of the screen as the delay became short enough to allow direct communications rather than recordings. "This is Captain Michael Oversteegan, commanding HMS _Gauntlet_. You say you have the man responsible for those barbaric acts?"

"Yes, captain. Along with the recordings he made of the deaths of all those people, and the gladiators he had fighting in his arena. A number of them escaped at the same time we did, but we aren't sure which ships they left on. It was rather hectic there at the end. Where do you want him?"

"We'll take him aboard when you reach orbit." He motioned to someone else. "Our cutter will be there in a few. The reward, it seems is yours."

"Reward?"

"The ship belonged to the Hauptmann Cartel. Klaus Hauptmann has placed a reward of 50,000 Manticoran for any information leading to an arrest and conviction for each of the crew members. I think delivering the man responsible has an additional reward." He looked up and back, nodding. "Our cutter is _en route_. _Gauntlet_ clear.

**Goodbye, and Hello.**

Lori was in a deep funk as she rode down toward Beacon. The first time she had made this trip, it was in the company of her friends, and the body of Jade. She cleared the ship, and was met by a ground car that took her to the medical center. She walked through the hospital rooms, looking at the faces of her genetic siblings. Some were unconscious, sedated to stop them from harming themselves. A couple were awake and coherent, and they cried when she introduced herself. That reward from years ago had been almost 3 million Manticoran dollars, and instead of splitting it, the others had offered to join in her crusade. The three Ballroom people from the station had joined her crew, but not that tighter family yet.

She held the hand of Lotus, the one of her own batch for a long time. She kept seeing another face, a slightly younger face in it. She was on suicide watch, as Lori should have done with Jade. As she watched, the woman's eyes opened, then turned to look at her. "Hello. I'm Lori." She felt tears in her eyes. "I'm your sister. I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again. Hold that in your heart, because you will live long enough to believe it." The woman merely shook her head, and closed her eyes again. Lori stood, kissing her gently on the cheek, and left.

She made the one pilgrimage she reserved to herself alone. There was a small cemetery inside the city limits. With Mesa no longer grinding up the bodies for pharmaceuticals, the slaves had reintroduced the idea of actual coffin burials here. She knelt, resting her hand on the stone that simply said JADE with the date of her death.

"We found some more of our sisters, Jade. I just wish you had waited long enough to meet them." She whispered, laying the small bouquet of flowers on the stone. She could almost feel a ghostly hand on her shoulder, and a voice so like her own whispering back.

_I know. I wait for all of you to eventually join me in peace. But there are more, so I will leave you to it. Give all of them the same gift, and I pray they use it more wisely than I._

She stood, turned, and strode out through the gate. She had more to save.


	10. Bitter Election Day

**A Bitter Election Day**

Berry walked out, and the dozen or so reporters stiffened. She was in a beautiful blue dress no one had recorded before. The hour was early; just after breakfast. There had been no leak as to what the press conference was for. Only the word that an important announcement was going to be given.

"Good morning, everyone. I will read a statement. There will be no questions afterward." She stood at the podium for a long moment. The press from as far away as Beowulf and Earth and as close as the Beacon Lamp were represented. "My government announces that Operation Battlement, the attack on the Good Times Station in the Cascade systems has been concluded successfully. 1,428,520 genetic slaves and Seccies have been liberated, and have come home."

For a long moment nothing. Then there was a shout of delight from the local reporters. Ryan Wong of Beowulf sat in the front row silent. John Pope of Terra looked at him. "What's wrong, Ry?"

"That isn't the face of someone with happy news." He whispered back. The two men watched as Berry looked down, and of all of them, only they saw the tears that fell. Her stance finally got through to the local reporters, and the room fell silent.

"While we are happy for our freed brethren, We also mourn our own losses. When they discovered that they had to save over four times as many people as we had originally estimated, some of our own stayed to delay the enemy. Along with 47,352 we could not save, two companies of our Marines, thirty naval ratings from four nations including our own, and four of our LACs with their crews were among that force. 498 of our people died."

Every eye was on her. When she spoke again, it was a young woman reminiscing. "I knew almost all of our dead personally. I mourn with you all. I am also struck by the actions of our new people. There was no shoving others aside to escape; even knowing that some would not get free, the so called 'Seccies' themselves started assuring that women and children were taken first. Children sometimes were left with only a single parent, and every rating and marine tells of men bidding their families goodbye and then turning to help still others. Men who were older or had limited job skills routinely pointed at others with more training to go first.

"One couple among them was mentioned time and again. When the loading of our warships began, pregnant women and women with young children were to be sent first. One woman Isabel Porter was hysterical. It was her first pregnancy, and she fought to stay with her husband. Samantha Drummond, a woman also assigned to that ship instead soothed her, and turned over her place to the husband. This was only the first time she did such a thing.

"During the frantic days that followed, she and her husband Morgan were a steady hand on those being evacuated. When all but her of the woman had been evacuated, she again refused, sending a young man in her place on the next draw. She told our people at that time that she was too old to make it worth the effort to save her, and that the young man who had been sent was trained in a skill we could use. Besides, she would leave with her husband or not at all.

"From that point on, the Drummonds were considered a pair. They loved each other so deeply that they refused to part. I am told they were alternately chosen four more times, and each time younger people went in their stead. Always the younger people. The ones still young enough for Prolong, the ones who would be here a century from now to keep our society alive. Yet when that last ship was loaded, and they were to be the last sent, again they sent others to take their place. The Drummonds were still on the Station during the attack." She looked across the room. "That old man and his wife were less than forty years old. They had menial jobs; she was head of housekeeping in the Overseers quarters, and he was a cook assigned to a local restaurant. Not the vessels you would expect to be heroes.

"We have an election today, and I ask all of you hearing me to cast your vote for whomever you feel best exemplifies such sacrifice. Once the last of our new House members have been seated in the coming weeks, I will ask the Citizen's House to award honors on those who died to save all of these people. I will also call upon them to grant posthumous titles to four of them. They are Judith Simonds, commanding officer of the 2nd Company first battalion, of my own Regiment, Ravika Sukaragi, commanding the entire Thandi's own, and Paul Andretti, commanding TRMLAC _Puma_. En route to freedom, Isabel Porter gave birth to a boy. She refused to name him until she found out whether the Drummond's survived. When she was told they had died. She named the boy Sam Morgan. I ask that all be remembered. So I have put forward a slave girl named Felicia who was personally rescued by Judith Simmonds as the second Baroness Masada. Ravika Sukaragi is survived by two brothers, and I ask that the oldest boy be invested as the 1st Baron Inkululeko. Paul Andretti's wife is pregnant, and her child will become Baron or baroness, with his wife becoming the Dowager Baroness Puma. Sam Morgan Porter is put forward as the Second Baron Drummond.

"I have ordered Admiral Brown to have the names of Puma, Tiger, Ocelot, and Cheetah added to our newly created Roll of Honor, and the first destroyers commissioned will proudly bear those names, as will ships that follow in the coming decades. I have further directed that the names of the commanders of those LACs will be given to heavy cruisers as they are brought into service Those names are appended to the copies of my speech available for those wh wish them." She set down the pad. "Thank you for your attention." She walked out of the room.

**The nature of the Enemy**

Kerin looked at the building with a lot of trepidation as the afternoon went on. She'd found, as a lot of others had, that Berry had a way of convincing you that was part charm, and a good portion of resolve. Almost a verbal form of Akkido. You walked in determined to prevail, and walked out finding she'd talked you out of your pants and rights to your first born. She hadn't ordered or decreed. She had merely asked her to come to a corner, and talked.

Hanna who was in charge of the 'informal get together' which was the excuse Thandi's Amazons used as to why at least three walked with her everywhere didn't bat an eye when Berry motioned vaguely toward the bar and said, "Could you draw the Grumwallah for the customers while we chat?" She'd served. While a lot of people pushed in to be able to say they had not only seen the Queen but had been served by one of her bodyguard, there was a quiet area around the pair.

Kerin had been adamant. She'd had enough horrors foisted on her by Manpower's dummy corporation, looking at several years that would have added her to the Audubon Ballroom's hit list, then more trapped here as a known associate of terrorists. All she hoped for from life was to live the rest of it in peace. But she found herself talking about her past, about her original dreams now poisoned at the well by Manpower.

Maybe it was just that Berry _listened_. She'd dealt with so many psych nannies it wasn't funny, one of the largest growing professions on a world where genetic slaves were the overwhelming majority. Yet unlike any nanny she had dealt with, Berry merely listened, asking the occasional question to keep the verbal river flowing until it reached the sea.

There was no pity, no oozing sympathy, just a willing ear and a good heart. By the time Berry and her pack of semi-domesticated wolves had left, Kerin found she was wiling to talk to the Maven, find out exactly what Jamie had been talking about.

Her hand clutched the Yo-yo in her pocket like a protective amulet, then strode forward.

She had expected something more... Ominous. Not a man in a khaki shirt reading something on a pad behind a desk dead center of the large room beyond. He looked up, then stood, smiling. "Miss Cleartraine?" She nodded. He motioned to the side of his desk. He tapped a control, then looked up. "May I see what's in your right jacket pocket please?" She pulled out the yo yo.

He took it, looked at it, at her, then handed it back. "Jamie will meet you on the fourth floor. It's the door at the end."

"She looked at the innocuous item. "You're going to let me take this in to see her?"

"Why? Did you intend to kill the Maven with it?" He asked.

"I don't want to kill anyone if I can avoid it."

"Good rule to live by." He made a motion toward the elevator bank like shooing a child on, and returned to his seat. She was bemused by the lack of security. What if she were some desperate lunatic, or one of those 'programmed assassins' Manpower was supposed to have?

Jamie nodded to her, motioning. She was relieved that he didn't try to shake hands, or set her at ease. The fastest way to make her react badly was to try anything like that. He merely walked at her side, opened the door, and ushered her into the office.

Everyone knew who Princess Ruth Winton was. She was one of the five most well known people on the planet. The fact that she was a Manticoran Princess didn't seem to faze her in the slightest. She turned away from the window as the door opened from the reception area, and came around her desk to face them. Again, no handshaking, no idle pleasantries. She waved toward the conversation pit to the right, and sat. Before they had even gotten seated, the receptionist, a man who looked like he opened beer bottles with other people's teeth was pushing in a cart with a tea service.

"We have coffee if you prefer." The Maven commented as her own tea cup was set down.

"Tea is fine." Kerin murmured.

Ruth poured for all of them. She asked each if they wanted sugar, lemon, milk, a light snack perhaps? Once they all had their cups, Ruth leaned back, sipping silently. Kerin had always wondered about what was still called 'Teatime'. The only people who created a larger production about making serving and enjoying tea were the ancient Japanese. But as she inhaled the smell of Bergamot, felt the delicious beverage flow into her, she felt also a sense of calm. People tend to chug or slurp coffee, and when it came to alcohol they would go from sipping to slamming it depending on the person. But tea was something you sipped. It made you slow down, settle your thoughts and emotions. It was something to use to break a busy day into one brief time of rest.

As she poured a second cup for each, Ruth began to explain why Kerin was there. She'd heard of Spider-Wasps; one of the slaves from her own facility had been 'selected' for the duty less than two months after she had arrived. When Manpower decided who to send, they polled all of the forty-one research facilities to find out who were the most disobedient or surly. If someone was chosen, a disc with the 'collecting' was sent back to that facility, and the slaves were forced to watch it. A warning as subtle as a sledgehammer. _Do what you're told, or you're next_.

She had gone ballistic when she happened to catch a few moments of that disc. Her supervisor told her quite coldly that if she didn't like it, she could be on the next collecting team.

After the Night of Rage, she found that the Torches had followed one old tradition just about every rebellion had; they turned a building in the small city into a museum. The building was chosen with malice aforethought; it was the one used by Manpower to show prospective buyers of their products the wonders of the new medicines being gathered and manufactured. Smiling company reps would explain what the new drugs would do, and show you where they had come from.

The new version had HDs of those smiling reps, and in the next section, actual footage shot by Manpower of what happened to those gathering the raw materials. The least popular (Or most popular if you wanted to hate Manpower) was the Honey gathering and production. The first portion was the sanitized version; shots of spider-wasps flying from flower to flower, the orbital facility where workers put the honey in jars, along with samples still in their pristine containers in a glass case. The next room, most noted, was a large bathroom section. Once they passed it into the viewing room, they understood why.

Torch had so many ways to kill you, and this was one of the worst, because unlike the production of Beauty (Which was not in that museum because it could cause the criminal element to start 'offsite' production if they knew) this was something Manpower had boasted about, and it wasn't one where it needed human assistance to kill you. As far as Kerin knew, no one had needed to see the deaths of those slaves carving up hives while under full scale attack every second more than once, and no one had gone through it without visiting the bathroom; usually during the presentation.

"We believe Manpower was using the insects as a possible biological weapon." Ruth finished. She handed across flat pics of the islands, and on two of them, the evidence of previous human inhabitation. "So what I have asked Jamie to do is create a team to verify if it is true. Then, after examination, we are going to see if his team can reverse the effects of that genetic engineering."

Kerin dropped the pics on the table. "I don't understand."

Ruth sighed. "If we can make them less aggressive, we can being producing honey again. It is actually a very good market if we can do it without getting people killed in job lots. There are plans in the works for what is being called 'drill and core'," She handed across a pad. "Erewhon has the tunnel drilling machinery, and there are sea caves below some of the islands that can be used like subway stations for gathering facilities. But I believe in examining every method, and if they can be returned to their natural state, which we believe is a lot less aggressive than they are now, it might be cheaper. But while we could merely collect some of them and kill them before analysis, there might be factors that we would not know unless they are alive.

"So we are going to build a Class 7 containment facility in orbit at the L2 position where it will stay in the shadow of the planet so we can use low temperature to keep them dormant while you work."

Kerin tossed the pad back onto the table, standing. "No. Not only no, but hell no!" She turned on her heel and stormed out. Jamie raised an eyebrow, and Ruth motioned for him to follow.

**Home of the Dragon**

When Manpower had come to claim the newly discovered world half a T century before, they had brought 20,000 slaves, everything needed to build a dozen small settlements and the Space Station now jokingly called Nightlight. As the designation suggested, it wasn't the first attempt, and a quarter of the slaves were already dead before Research Facility 19 was even attempted.

Each of the previous attempts had been in the jungle where something of immense value had been found during the initial survey missions. They went in with shuttles, troops in powered armor, and slaves that originally went in without armor, but later had unpowered armor issued. Sadly every such attempt had ended before they could collect enough to make it worth the cost. The wildlife of this planet didn't much care what technology you brought along; and being in what would on Earth have been the equivalent of the mid Cretaceous Period, was large. A TriRex (Named because it had a pair of forward sweeping horns like the triceratops, but a head and body more like the T Rex) would not only rip apart a powered armor suit, it could outrun one as well. A herd of Double Wides, the local equivalent of the Diplodicus of Earth; and natural prey of the TriRex, would flatten a shuttle if it didn't lift off fast enough when they stampeded. So the corporation came up with a new plan. Create a secure base, and use it to send groups out to force openings in the sometimes triple and quadruple canopy.

Where the river Jordan entered Moonlight Bay, as they were called now, Research Facility 19 began on the lightly wooded peninsula that separated the bay from the river. First was the drop of 1000 slaves using grav chutes along a line seven kilometers from the tip, followed with the necessary equipment for a sonic fence which should have stopped anything that might want to kill them. This effort was to be followed by grading equipment necessary to construct a runway using an ancient method called low altitude parachute extraction; a shuttle flying over at less than ten meters with all of the machinery strapped to pallets designed to flatten on impact to save the machinery from damage. Once the fence was up, everyone relaxed. But there were things already inside that enclosure.

The fence wasn't good enough because the slaves met the Tutzelwurm along with the Crocs, the Sea-Dragons, and the Da Vinci Tank for the first time. The first to score a human target was the DV tank. A Overseer in powered armor came down close enough to startle the creature, and it turned to flee, accidentally smashing the heavy armored ball on it's tail into him severely damaging the suit. It was the only herbivore in the mix, something that looked like a cross between the anyklosaurus of the Cretaceous era and the armadillo of the American Southwest, that fed like an Earth sloth on vegetation by climbing up high enough to rip off branches. Thanks to the fact that the larger ones were about three tons, it explained why the area had few trees compared to further on where it immediately became double canopy jungle; they tended to shove smaller trees over. But they were relatively placid, and caused few injuries after that.

Then along the fence line being laid, there were disappearances that were unexplained. A team would be working, leave a single slave to finish the alignment and activation of the sonic generators of that pole then that one man would just vanish. The Corporation knew they weren't heading for the hills; an unarmored man was a _snack_ to anything smaller than a TriRex, and powered armor a _crunchy_ snack to them. But by the end of the first day, they had completed the fence, and activated it with only a few men killed or missing.

It would have helped if the Tutzelwurm had ears. In fact the sub-sonic 'fence' _attracted_ them. But the problem with that had been discovered by those 'missing' men and wouldn't show itself until later.

The next deaths were near the water of the river, and the cause was obvious, because of the size of the attackers. The new species was simply called Croc, and they ranged from the largest, ten meters long called the Godcroc, the smaller five meter version called the Damncroc, and, when someone fell into the water and got mobbed, the crocettes, which averaged more like half a meter to a meter in length. The two larger varieties would come ashore if they saw movement, and only powered armor was safe. So the entire labor force was placed in shelters near the center of the enclosure, and the Overseers waited in their powered armor through the night. There were no attacks by crocs more than one hundred meters of the shore, and none at all on the seaward side

Then came signals from sections of the fence that had gone down during the night. Since there was an overlap, each fence post broadcasting almost twice as far as the next on either side, they sent out crews with overseers in unpowered armor, and small floodlight platforms.

That was when they saw what they were facing. Along the fence line, and close enough that some had literally shoved the posts over, were hundreds of what looked like ordinary fishing worms; if God were to want to fish for great whites and Orca on Earth and had made them for that. The smallest were just under a meter length, and grew to over three in length, and looked for all the world like living sections of plumbing pipe. They were later determined to be worms like the annelids of Earth, but like everything so far on the planet, they had their own lethal surprise.

They figured out nose from tail because like a snake or worm they didn't back up, they had to move around things and would merely bend back until they found a new path. They were slow, averaging less than a kilometer per hour, and unlike a worm, didn't burrow too deeply. The first man who got close enough however found out what that surprise was. As they moved, they would looked for things to eat ahead of them within a very short range; maybe 10 centimeters because of their rudimentary eyes. Then they would compress the entire front end of their bodies, and snap it forward like a spring snake in a box.

There were two fangs that were hard enough that while the nose of the animal would compress on impact, they would still be able to imbed themselves in the target. The smaller ones had fangs less than five millimeters long, but the larger ones as much as ten millimeters. The first slave who merely approached the fence was struck, and within seconds the flesh around the bite at his ankle began to dissolve.

The skin around the initial puncture broke, and a slit ripped open up his thigh as blood, fats, and dissolved muscle poured out onto the forest floor. His screams attracted every one of the worms within five meters which came in and began to bump the two who had gone to his aid, biting them as well. It was neither fast nor painless, the men were given mercy rounds when an overseer just decided he'd heard enough of their cries of agony and for help. Soon there was merely a red oozing mass of undiferentiated protien with scattered bones because even cartilage had dissolved, and every one of the worm shared in the feast.

The remains of those men, after shooting every one of the damn worms that had killed them, was collected along with dead worms for analysis. A xeno-zoologist remembered stories of an extinct 'monster' that used to live in the Alps back on Old Earth, and gave them their name. They had a simple stomach that needed a lot of the digestion work done by a more evolved stomach cut out of the mix, explaining the toxin. The Proteolytic toxin they used had a lot of medical uses, and even the soup that was all that remained of the men had it's value. So the next morning, another plan was formulated.

The drop of earth moving equipment went as planned, and they began a berm half a kilometer closer to the Facility ten meters high with a slope as close to vertical as possible on the outside, and a ramp on the inside. At the outside base where the earth had come from was a ditch as deep, (The idea of actually creating a moat was shot down because the Crocs would move into that) with only one gate originally facing a drawbridge like a medieval Bailey. That gate was more on the order of a portcullis, because while the still active sonic fence would attract the Tutzelwurm, there were other animals it did not.

It was discovered that the DV tank was relatively immune to the Tutzelwurm because it had bony scales layering it's back and legs, protecting it from Dragons Crocs and even a TriRex as well, so a compound that caused flesh to dissolve had to hit between them, which wasn't easy. It was also why they were the only large land animal in the compound. Even the Crocs moved back into the water during the evening. The original idea; to place the same fencing along the river side was discarded. They didn't know if the Tutzelwurm could swim (They could, but Crocs seemed to love them) and didn't want to find out. After determining how high a Godcroc could climb, embankments were laid of ferroconcrete to a meter higher than that running back and around the point for ten meters from where the river met the sea; the furthest point where Crocs had attacked. So they were relatively safe.

Since nothing had attacked from the seaward side, the first actual settlement began on the seaside as they worked on the first runway which ran from the point straight for five kilometers. Instead of sonic fences, they poured ferroconcrete walls three meters high completely around the slave's quarters.

The few dozen Tanks still inside the perimeter were driven into an electrified enclosure and fed, which was all right with them because they weren't smart enough to know that getting hit by a landing shuttle _hurt_ until it actually happened, and shuttles were expensive. The animals were bred and used for food because the Tutzelwurm toxin properly diluted, made an excellent meat tenderizer, and was marketed through all of human space as such without telling anyone beyond Mesa how it was made. Properly tenderized, the meat was almost as tender as veal and had it's own market niche. The heavy armor skin was made into armor for the legs and feet of the slaves.

But rather than live amongst the slaves, the Manpower reps ordered a floating pontoon causeway with a kilometer square structure that would house the original production and processing facilities, the Overseers and the company representatives. A factory to produce thermoplast was delivered, and the first pontoon was built, and slid into the water. It was three meters from the water to the top, 50 meters wide and square, and anchored to the shore once floated with the earth ramped to form a solid way onto it. However as they started to deploy the second pontoon, the Sea Dragons appeared.

Looking like a mixture of the Chinese Dragons of legend with wings, the smallest (five meters long) were capable of actual flight, though it was more of a glide, and an altitude of five meters meaning that men on the pontoon were high enough that they were choice prey. Their natural prey was the local analog of flying fish that developed the ability to fly short distances to avoid larger predators, also able to fly that high. So as the first of the actual platform pontoons were built (no less than eight meters above the waterline) the rate of slaves dying was around seven a day. To protect the causeway, antiaircraft chain guns were brought down and installed. Set to automatically target and shoot any movement away from the causeway, on any other planet they would have been proof of a human enemy. Here it had been just an investment in survival; after all, the company bigwigs would have to cross the causeway to get to the slave quarter, then through it to the shuttle field to escape.

With Research Facility 19 up and safe, the corporation began clearing areas in the abandoned original research areas. They could have merely used the same method, as when they opened Research Facility 20 (Now the town of Lumiere on the opposite coast from what was now Beacon); But instead they went for, as the old military parlance says, the bigger bang.

Back when the biggest bomb meant the biggest balls, the Old United States had deployed what was called the Daisy Cutter in a very unpopular war in a nation called Vietnam. A bomb that blasted an area large enough for one of the helicopters of the time, over 300 meters, and coincidentally killing everything within 500 meters. Being a proponent of the bigger bang, the US had later deployed the bomb's big brother, which because of it's acronym (MOAB) became known as the 'Mother of All Bombs' in a war in the nation that used to be called Iraq. Equal to 11 tons of explosives, it devastated an Iraqi Battalion on guard. And the threat of another caused another unit to flee in panic. Not to be outdone, the Russian Federation, which filled in between the Soviet Unions fielded their 'Father of All Bombs', which was four times as large.

Remember the story of the Three Bears? When it came to what to use, Manpower went straight to Papa. Of course, considering the way they felt about other human beings, who would be surprised?

On the T scale used to sell a newly discovered world to a prospective group of settlers, this world was a T-14. To give you an idea of how bad that is, if you were looking at Old Terra when man evolved, with cave bears, saber-tooth tigers, mastodons and all, it would be T-10. Only the original Cretaceous period on old Terra was worse (Try T-15). If it had been anyone but Manpower and Mesa, it would have been a paean of human ingenuity. Man against nature. And all it cost to this point were 8,481 slaves.

But as much as the Galaxy seems to think Mesa is the be all and end all of human villainy, there were people there whose only crime was their planet of birth. Something like 75% of the people on Mesa were Seccies; second class citizens born of genetic slaves. Among the other 25% were people who ran other businesses.

While it was a good business holding, the people assigned as technicians and engineers needed their downtime, after all it was so hard to drive half a dozen men into the bush, then collect the survivors and process the pharmaceuticals. So slowly Mesans not linked to Mapower began to arrive. Soon a thriving little town stood there, and the local Manpower personnel could walk in a park, go to a restaurant, stop and have coffee in a sidewalk cafe, raise families, and have schools to send them to. These were run not by Manpower, but merely people who enjoyed serving in such places. Dejima still housed the factories, and the 700,000 odd slaves either newly delivered or back from a duty shift before reassignment were jammed into an area about the size of Manhattan Island on Earth without the advantage of the tall buildings of that borough.

But they needed protection from the wildlife, which was now more an annoyance than a serious threat within the berm. Of course everyone went armed, whether it was the 'boar spears' of the slaves, or guns, but people being people, there were also problems with each other. Corporate security wasn't large enough. You don't need tens of thousands of armed men to stop a slave revolt, you just needed a few thousand with orbital weapons support. You didn't let the overseers do it, though. They had to watch and assure the slaves worked.

Of the almost one million people that lived on the planet, all but ten percent were slaves. One percent were the Manpower personnel and the overseers, and the remainder were just people doing their jobs. Rather than expect Manpower to protect them, they decided on another option. So a third force was slipped into the middle; a local force who patrolled the streets looking not only for crime, but also for the dangers inherent in just living here. So like any frontier town, you had sheriffs and their deputies. And when the Night of Rage happened, these men protected what they could of the innocent civilians. And in that night of blood and pain, in what was now Beacon, one man shown through. The man nicknamed Dragon.

That man now stood at the window looking across the causeway at Beacon. He wasn't sure where this new nation was going. Berry talked a good game, as did WEB Du Havel and Jeremy. But the jury, in his mind, was still out.

The causeway led a hundred meters from the shore to the kilometer square man made floating island. While the Manpower executives had called it something a lot prettier, the present residences had always called it Dejima after the artificial island created in 1634 CE. The Japanese had problems with foreigners, especially the Spanish and Portuguese starting back in 1550. This had led to a number of foreigners being killed and a relocation of their trade from the port of Hirado to Nagasaki, because the local Daiymo(Lord) had embraced Catholicism, and allowed them to first trade through the once sleepy little town. Then in 1580, ceded it to the Jesuits. But that wasn't the end of the troubles, it was only the beginning.

In 1588 the newly installed Kwampaku (A title similar to that of Shogun, but only held if the leader was the Regent of a child emperor) exerted control of the area again. But the Japanese were already very upset by the four social diseases these traders brought. Two of them were actual diseases; gonorrhea and syphilis. The other two were more insidious. One was lack of cleanliness, after all, if you bathed too often, you might be a Marrano, or 'secret Jew' which meant you would face the Inquisition. To a people who routinely bathed every day and sometimes twice a day, having to deal with someone who took a bath maybe as often as once a week, and some of whom proudly claimed to have _never_ bathed in their lives, it was appalling.

The last was of all the worst in Japanese eyes. It was _Christianity_. Having their own people convert to a foreign faith was considered so bad, that the leaders who had not converted routinely slaughtered the converts. Finally in 1612, the Shogun banned the proselytizing, and backed up the decree with Samurai. While the matchlock had been seen by them, the Samurai archers, who routinely fired a dozen arrows in the time it took for that weapon to be reloaded once weren't impressed.

They were even less impressed with the accuracy of what they faced. While an arquebus could kill a man at over a kilometer; twice the range of a two meter length Yama bow, they were so wildly inaccurate that there had been reported incidents where a single newly trained man would fire from the far end of a formation, and his shot would hit someone on the opposite end of the formation they were shooting at. A Samurai with a Yama might be out ranged, but within the range he could hit at, each of those arrows he fired would kill or wound a man.

After seeing how deadly their archer were, and how disciplined their troops were on every level, the idea of importing a few hundred Conquistadors and forming a tercos was seen as stupid. Pack four hundred men into a solid block, shoulder to shoulder, and have them march forward at the half-step against such accurate fire? Not even the Spanish, the premier army of the time would accept the losses!

So it settled into an uneasy stalemate. But the Japanese weren't finished. They restricted trade with these carriers of disease to only three small towns, and finally to Nagasaki alone. But even this wasn't good enough. So in 1634, a small peninsula was turned into a man made island, and all traders were restricted to what was later called Dejima until 1858 when the Americans forced their doors open once again.

To the slaves that had died building it and the first runway for the shuttles, it was obviously where the undesirables lived.

Dragon was the de facto law and ruler of what was now called the Dragon Quarter. A section of the city of Beacon that stretched for almost five kilometers along the coast from the edge of the shuttle runways to the berm and included Dejima. It was something of an embarrassment to the new government, because it was what used to be the old slaves quarters, and the original Overseers quarters as well, back when Beacon had merely been Research Facility 19. When it came to rough neighborhoods, this was the roughest.

Dragon sighed, turning to face the men in his office. "Report.

"Kerin is speaking ing with Maven even now, Dragon." One of them, Vassily, commented.

"About?"

"Spider-wasps we think."

"Again with the damn things." He replied. He walked back to his desk, sitting in the comfortable chair. "We have to deal with this problem now, before the new nation can be torn apart by it."

"How, Dragon?" Another, Tupolev asked.

"I will speak to her." He replied. "See to it."

–

"I said no!"

Jamie was trying to keep up, but she was almost running as it was. "Keri-" She spun, and he slid to a halt.

"_Why_, before God and the Choir on High, do we need to work on them _alive_?" Kerin shouted in fury and fear. "They're a genuine fucking world-killer, and the bad guys know they're here! They're a _dagger_ at our _throats_, and they _need_ to be _exterminated_!"

Jaime regarded his protege thoughtfully. Her eyes were too wide, her skin too pale, she was trembling so badly it looked like she was about to come out of her skin. He could see her pulse in at least six places. This wasn't a mere tantrum, this was a panic attack, PTSD-driven and one small step short of psychotic event. _She hasn't had any of that grumwallah today _he realized.

"Kerin. Kerin, easy. We will talk about this, and I will hear you, eh? We need to calm you down - your head must be screaming, I can see your pulse in your throat."

Kerin had turned to the door. "I need t-to get out of here. I need to walk." She produced a yo-yo from somewhere and was working it simply, up-down, up-down. The string glistened in the overhead lights, almost like it was diffracting the light. "I'm going home."

Jaime eyed the yo-yo. It practically murmured how plain, how ordinary it was... simple brushed metal, not flashy, not shiny... and that, in turn, started setting flags in his mind. "Of course. You will come back tomorrow, right?"

The look she gave him was bitter with pain and frustration. "How can I not? You'd just have me arrested." And with that she was out the door and striding down the corridor before Jaime could think what to say, the yo-yo popping side to side, then front-to-back, defining a space that everyone around her respected. Then she turned the corner, and was lost to his sight.

_But not to my oversight_. Jaime hurried to the comm, dialing the Maven's desk. The screen lit, but Jaime didn't give her time to say anything. "Kerin is having a panic attack, and is leaving the building - south side, I think, unless she turns again. I think it would be _very_ bad if anyone tried to stop her - she'd never come back of her own free will. I have no authority here, and she must be followed for her own safety!"

Maven didn't argue. "I'll call the Detail, they'll get someone on her. Email me a report, please; I want to know what the hell happened..."

Night was falling gently as she debarked the bus and entered into her neighborhood. Here, the buildings were local wood, and brick, and simple cement; here, neon and porchlights competed with the lonely corner lightposts and the traffic lights. The streets were alive with the scents of foods cooking, of wood-smokes and herb-smokes of different varieties, of music playing... of humanity, in ways the cold, sterile halls of academia and government never were. Alleys were black voids containing who-knew-what, unless there was an alley doorway and a switched on light. She found herself softly singing a very, very old song, one she had always liked ever from the first time she had seen the play, as her yoyo kept time. 

_Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor  
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender..._

As she proceeded down the street, there were nods and smiles; she was well-known in the Dragon's Quarter, and well liked. Soon a man was walking alongside her, a respectful foot or so away, and then another on the other side of him. Both wore long dark coats in the style called dusters, and the lapels of their coats bore a simple steel badge in the shape of a Dragon rampant.

"Miz Kerin. Good t' szee you back." The one man said warmly, his mishapen mouth and protruding teeth making him lisp a bit. His voice was a deep growling bass, and exactly matched the fearsomeness of his visage.

Kerin looked at the man and smiled. "Maw, isn't it?" Her yoyo kept the time of the song in her head.

"Yesz mum. This 'ere isz Pete; he'sz new. Pete, this 'ere isz Kerin Cleartraine, she worksz in t' Hostel bar an' roomsz over it. Miz Kerin, 'imzself wouldt like a wordt, when you might; he'sz aroun' Mother'sz thisz night. Or t'morrow; no ruszh, y'can aszk any of usz where he might be. You not been about, szinze the Queen came, an' there'sz been trouble; he jusz' wantsz t' know you're well."

"The Dragon sent you to tell me that?" Her thoughts skittered around the likely aftermath of the inevitable collision of the Dragon and the Queen.

Maw shook his head. "No, mum; wordt wasz pazset guardt-mount, wasz for usz _all_ t'watch for you, an' t'let you know. Ol' Aunt May, szhe toldt _him_, moszt likely."

Kerin was about to ask Maw to escort her there, when there were shouts from down the way, along with a blaze of actinic light and the hiss of an autofire needler. An entire pack of somethings screeched big. "Call it in! An' sztay wit' her!" Maw hollered as he ran towards the sound of the gun. As he ran he produced from under his coat a short-form drum-fed shotgun and worked the slide.

Pete, for his part, produced an identical shotgun. It ratcheted as he chambered a shell, meanwhile muttering into a hush-mike apparently sewn into his coat. He looked at Kerin, and his expression was cool, remote; a soldier's look. "You going to give me trouble?" He asked calmly, as though asking for the time. Kerin couldn't place his accent.

Kerin's yoyo was still in her hand. "No."

Pete nodded. "Good. Hate to hit women."

From down the way came another screech, slightly different than the first, and another rolling boom. Then another shot, and a third. "Pete! Pete! Runnerz comin' t'you! Two of 'em!"

_Runners. We need to separate them._ Kerin stepped away from the wall and walked into the middle of the street, feeling very like she was watching herself. As she did she twisted the two sides of her yoyo - Pete cursed as he tried to grab her and missed - and a much smaller core was revealed, with a flashing, luridly incarnadine LED on each side. Pete cursed again as it started shrilly alarming, a piercing electronic beep repeating every half second in time with the diode, and stepped the hell away from her -

- and a pair of long runners came up the street, legs pumping, their namesake long necks and tails stiff as rails as they leaned into their mad dash. One of them, weighing perhaps forty kilos, went for Pete, who fired twice. The first shot peppered it's legs, causing it to stumble; the second, not having as much range to spread, simply disintegrated it's head. The body ran past him and crashed into the wall, where it writhed and kicked, not accepting it was dead yet.

The other, a bit smaller, went for Kerin. Her yoyo flew up as she threw it hard, the cord simply falling apart into plastic confetti as it flew. Then, as Kerin charged the carnivore, it spun in a perfect circle beside her, the electronic beep dopplering into a siren. At the last moment she spun away like a toreador, the runner's toothy jaws agape and following her -

- and the entire front end of the creature flew off, writhing and snapping. Even as it began to separate, the monofilament tether of her yoyo slid thru hide, muscle, and structural bone three more times as easily as it did the air, transforming the sleekly deadly carnivore into a darkly scarlet welter of blood and still moving parts that cascaded down the street before coming to rest. Not a drop had landed on her.

"Jesus! You're crazy, woman!" Pete asked as he swept the street where they had come from. "Maw! You okay?"

Kerin safed and recapped her yoyo as people, old and young, started coming from every direction - all armed. Pete raised his weapon horizontally above his head. "We're good here! Y'all stay here with me 'til we get things sorted out! Keep clear of that head, it might still can bite!"

Maw came walking up the street, sliding a fat cartridge thru the loading gate of his weapon. "I'm goot. T'guy in'na alley... not szo much. He got two of 'em, but one was behindt him." He raised his voice. "Anyone ezpectin' friend or family right about now?" One young woman raised a hand. "Right, ma'am, you're with usz. Hope ya don' know 'im. We need two more witneszesz! It ain't pretty, an' I ain't havin' kidsz, so not' you nor you." He pointed twice in quick succession. "You an' you, will ya come?"

The two so designated stepped forward unenthusiastically but willingly enough. Maw addressed the rest of the crowd as Pete started handing out cards. "My name isz Maw, an' you can all szee why, right?" There were a couple of grins at the sally. "That there isz Pete, my partner. I speak for t' Dragon when I szay, thanksz for comin' szo quick. Thisz'z the way we like t' do biz'nesz down 'ere - we all look out for each other. Th' meat'll be down at Oldt Man Jzou'sz t'morrah fer pickup. Y'all go home now, an' we pray nothin' elsze badt happensz thisz night."

As the crowd dispersed, two young men bowed to Maw, then began gathering Kerin's kill. Two more were over at the other carcass, lifting it into the bed of a small cart that looked like it had started life as the bed of a light utility truck. Kerin looked at Maw. "You want me to come as well, right, Maw?"

Maw nodded. "If'n ye don't mind, Miz Kerin. We might needt you for to be th' third witnesz."

Kerin nodded in turn. "Then afterwards, I'll ask escort to Aunt Mae's."

"Right-o."

At the end of the street, the Detail woman uploaded the video file to her drop box. She didn't know who the scrag was, or the one called Pete, but she knew a uniform when she saw it, and those two, she felt certain, did not answer to the Queen...

After the man in the alley was tearfully identified, both by his weapon and by his boots (which contained his ID) Kerin dutifully served as the third witness, and went on record as having been present for the identification and scene, and agreeing the man died as a result of an attack by a pack of long runners. While the woman was escorted to a friends home just down the street, who pledged to keep her safe and help with whatever, the agent posted across the street and sent her spy-eye to record the scene. slipped into the alley and took a quick scan, and a blood sample. That'll ID the fellow, she thought as she straightened.. Then the other two witnesses were escorted to their homes. Only then did Kerin, Maw, and Pete turn towards Aunt Mae's. As they stepped into the street, Pete muttered into his lapel.

"Team three, heading for Aunty's, rolling clean as can be."

Agent Bond - Jane Bond, thank you - studied the image her crawler had sent her as she waited for the subject and the two UNSUBs to come out of the apartment building. _Nasty, _she thought. The man - whoever he was, the crawler had a blood sample for ID in it's miniscule mechanical gut - had been armed, and had spotted his predicament just a bit too late. He had tried to rush the main pack, with his needler on full auto blazing his path before him, and he had killed two doing it - _glad there was no one in front of the alley when he started spraying_ - but there had been at least one behind him, and it had pounced him, literally tearing his head off as it took him down. _At least it was quick_ she thought bleakly. Then the scrag had run into the alley, killed two more with a shotgun - _Browning and Zed, I'd say_ - and the remains of the pack had run straight into his partner and her subject. End of problem.

Except Bond's problems were just beginning. A paramilitary organization operating in the city, and her subject - that was a problem she was gratefully going to kick upstairs. Whereinhell she had been trained came to mind _very_ quickly. Monofilament was a assassin's weapon. All the civilians were safely home, though... She had to admit, whoever the guys in the dusters were, they seemed to do their follow-thru properly.

"God only knows who they're reporting to, though..." she muttered to herself as she stooped to pick up her crawler. They were coming out now.

"Team three, heading for Aunty's, rolling clean as can be."

_Now what the hell does that mean, I wonder_ she thought, looking around covertly as she did. Her visor might look stylish, but it allowed her night vision, and she could get a full three sixty degree scan with only about one-forty of actual movement. _Have I been made?_

She shrugged as she moved on after her subject. She was a Queen's woman, and this was her job of the night. She was armed, she was armored - lightly, granted, but nothing those shotguns could put out would penetrate, unless they went for her head - and she had legal authority anywhere on the planet. Anything happened to her, and there would be hell to pay. Let _them_ be worried.

"Sztill nodt carrying, Miz Kerin?" Maw asked pleasantly as they made their way further into the Quarter.

Kerin shook her head. "Still not, Maw. I don't like guns."

Maw sighed. "Whadt wouldt you 'a done tonighdt in hisz szhoesz, eh?"

Kerin sighed. "Died, most likely. But I wouldn't have gone into that alley in the first place!"

They turned the corner, and Maw nodded at two more men in dusters identical to his own leaning on the wall. "Joe. Wills. Good night so far?"

Joe nodded in return. "Maw. Pete." Kerin got a tip of his hat. "Miz Cleartraine. Good so far. Heard you had a mess to clean up?"

Maw nodded. "One deadt, but IDed, szo at leaszt he'sz nodt a John Doe. Idiot went into a dark alley. MO szame asz t'othersz, an' we killedt a pack of long runnersz, szo hopefully that'sz thadt."

Wills spat in disgust. "I hate those things."

Pete glanced at Kerin. "We got to get to Aunt Mae's before she closes, gents. 'Scuse us?"

Agent Bond came around the corner and stopped dead as the man in the duster pushed off the wall in front of her. The light flashed on a pin on his lapel as he grinned. "Howdy, ma'am. Hill girl like you ought not to be in these parts, especially at night."

Bond grimaced. "Step aside." she said crisply.

The man spread his hands in front of himself, showing they were empty. "There's three of us to your one, now, Hill girl. All we want is to talk, and see you safely back on the Hill. My name is Joe, that there across the street is Wills, an' the man making sure no runners take your head this night is Doubtie." He paused and spat a strange dark liquid redolent of some kind of flavoring. "We know what you are an' what you do; be hell to pay if anything came of you, an' the Dragon Himself knows it. So you ain't going no further this way, ma'am. Our orders are to see you safely back in the bright lights, an' that's what we're going to do... but I'd much rather have you do so of your own will an' under your own power, if you follow me. Your call, though."

Bond's eyes narrowed. "My subject is gone past you. Anything happens to _her_, and there _will _be hell to pay, I promise you."

Joe snorted. "Naw! With the Queen herself down here to ask her to come up the Hill? Do you really think so? Whyinhell do you think we have her under escort, Hill girl?"

Bond gritted her teeth. "My name is Bond, not Hill girl. And you are delaying me. Get out of my way, or as God is my witness - "

"You'll eat two beanbags before you get your hand out from under that pretty little coat of yours, Bond. An' your armor won't do shit to help you." Joe's voice was harsh as his finger flicked across it contemptuously. "It's great versus penetrating... not so good against impact. Then we'll hogtie you and drive you over the Bridge, call it in an' leave you by the call box." Joe's voice tempered, still hard, but somehow... pitying. "We've had you ever since you came off that transport of yours, you know. No one down here drives anything like that; I doubt there are any on the planet outside of the palace. You folk simply have no idea what goes on down here, do you? " His voice softened, became cajoling. "Come on, Bond, why take the lumps? Your subject - her name is Kerin Cleartraine, by the way - will be back up at the University in the morning, you can ask her then what went on down here. We'll see to that. Tell you what, you let me walk you back, and you can question me all you like on the way. You can even - " he grinned theatrically ' - hold me hostage against her return. As long as it's your place, of course."


	11. Other Opinions

**Other Opinions**

Kerin sighed as she came within sight of Aunt Mae's. A simple three story affair of brick, with an old-fashioned sign of neon showing the all-seeing eye, the store would look right in any back alley of the last three thousand years. The sign was lit, so Maw pulled open the door and held it for Kerin to enter.

Inside, the shop was old wood, well-waxed against the humidity, residual incense, and hand-woven area rugs over some of that old wood. Pics of book covers lined the walls, and a closed cabinet held real printed books, all of them appearing quite old. A few tables, positioned in accordance with revised feng shui, were positioned strategically to display the esoteric wares they supported; a knowing eye would note the sculptures on each table - all of them depictions of the Worried Man, who never can know enough. Pride of place at the counter went to a statue of Old Mother May Eye in her rocking chair, tending to her knitting.

Aunt Mae was seated at her usual table to the right of the counter. A cup of tea sat on the purple covered table, and her working deck was beside the pot on the other side. Her lined face lit with joy at the sight of Kerin, and she rose to accept Kerin's hug easily

"Welcome back, daughter! Oh, glad I am you've come to see me so soon; I was afraid I was going to have to go chase you down. Can you talk about it?"

Kerin nodded, and got herself a cup and saucer from behind the counter. "Yes, Tante Mae, I can talk about it." _I need to talk about it_ she thought to herself. "What's in the pot, ma'am?"

Aunt Mae reseated herself. "Good Anar black tea, child. I knew you would come tonight, or else not at all. No!" She held up a hand, forestalling Kerin's explanation. "Be seated, child, and welcome, as always. Shuffle, and cut for me?"

Kerin sat, and shuffled the cards three times while Aunt Mae poured her tea. The she placed the deck squarely in the center of the table, and cut it, laying the top beside the bottom. Then she sat back, picked up her tea, and blew on it before sipping.

Aunt Mae picked up the bottom, placed it on top of the former top, and the entire deck came to her hand. Three cards she dealt, one two three.

"Mmm... The Hanged Man, the Tower, and the five of Staves. Daughter, from tragedy, you proceed into conflict. You can't be what you were, or what you are now; You must be more. Why did Berry come down the hill for you?"

Kerin sipped her tea and willed calm. "Because they think I am the only trained xeno-biologist and xeno-geneticist on the planet who is at loose ends and has taken the Oath. Even though I told them I haven't even my Master's, let alone my Doctorate."

"Who is they? And why did _Berry_ come for you?"

Kerin sipped again. "They is Ruth Winton, and a foreigner named Jaime Mac, who thinks that the spider-wasps are actually a bioweapon." She put her cup down as her hands began to tremble. "And Berry came because Jaime tried to tell me he knew people, and I didn't believe him."

Aunt Mae leaned back and sighed. "The spiderwasps. They've located them, clearly. Good; that is an issue that has festered for far too long."

Kerin leaned forward. "I know, right? I told Jaime they need to be destroyed. They want to _work _with them, _tame_ them, believe it or not!"

Aunt Mae sighed. "Daughter... have you meditated upon this at all?"

Kerin flopped back in her chair. "No. I don't need to to know what needs to be in this case."

Now Aunt Mae leaned forward. "Foolish girl. On so many levels, you have not thought this through. You let old grief and horror blind you. I expect better of you than this!" She thumped her cane of the floor in emphasis. "You will tell me why you think those poor tortured creatures deserve annihilation. Tell me why you would expunge, rather than heal." her voice lowered, becoming almost a hiss. "Why you would kill, rather than protect. That is not the act of a devotee of Yo."

Kerin stared at her, eyes wide. "You, of all people, know what those things can do. How many of their victims did you know? This man Jaime thinks they might be a biological weapon system run amok. If that's so, then they're even worse than we thought. How can you heal something made to kill?"

Aunt Mae was undaunted. "Child, do you think they like being what they are?" She leaned back and took up her cup, her voice becoming more serene, almost as though another was seated in her flesh. "Do you think they asked to be made into what they are? They kill because they are crazed, maddened by what has been done to them. Evil they are not." She sipped, and eased in the chair.

"Destroying them is the simplest, easiest solution. And how often is that the best course of action? To say nothing of the observable fact that whatever is begun in anger, more often than not ends in shame and regret." She turned another card over. "Ah. King of Blades. Good evening, Georgi."

Georgi Mikhailovich, called the Dracul, or Dragon, appeared to have a strong Scrag extraction. He was tall and lithely muscular, with a complexion that suggested it was not wise to expose himself to the sun much. His hair was black, and militarily short; his eyes were a peculiarly pale blue shading to grey. He did not smile, and his voice, when he spoke, was a quiet baritone that demanded one's attention. "Good evening, Aunt Mae. I made use of your key, as you see."

"So I see." Aunt Mae's voice was calm and accepting. "How much of our conversation did you overhear?"

"All of it; I came in right after she did. I have a number of other reasons to lay before you as to why the spider-wasps must be brought under control, Ms. Cleartraine." Georgi laid a chip case on the table. "That is for Jaime Mac and Ruth Winton, Ms. Cleartraine. It contains what I have concerning the spiderwasps, including some data that is speculative, but I am reasonably sure is germane." He drew a stool out from under the counter and perched on it, fluffing his coat over it and easing the sword he was never without.

"Generalist Mac is quite correct, in my opinion; the spiderwasps are biologically engineered. Whether or not they were intended to be a weapon system is somewhat problematic; they appear to be uncontrollable, which is a serious flaw in a weapon - unless you want a Doomsday weapon, which I rather doubt was the intent." Georgi stretched out an arm, snagged the teapot, and poured himself a cup. "Ah, Darjeeling. I want to plant tea here, see how it does..." He sipped appreciatively.

"First you learn types of tea before planting." Aunt Mae snorted. "Or you end up with Chicory instead of coffee as well." He merely shrugged at the rebuke.

"To continue. The Mesans certainly know of the spiderwasps existence; the fact that their honey has been off the market suggests they did not have any interest in recreating them. But now that Vista Verde has become Torch, that might well change. I offer for your contemplation, Ms Cleartraine, the interstellar political firestorm Torch would find itself in if spiderwasps were deployed anywhere in the known universe. Properly stage-managed, it could conceivably lead to the Sollies arriving here, in force, with the intent of pacifying the planet and handing it off to the OFS, in the interests of interstellar public safety, to say nothing of discouraging anyone else from similar tactics." He sipped again, and calmly regarded Kerin, who felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

"I would also suggest that since Mesa probably made the damned things, they likely have a better idea than we do of how to eradicate them after such a deployment without irretrievably destroying the environment. Which, if true, begs the question of why haven't they used them here, on the mainlands yet?" He sipped again.

"Which, of course, leads me at least to wonder if they haven't already done so, and we just haven't noticed yet." He finished his cup, set it aside, and stood.

"Commerce and questions of morals and ethics are all very well, Ms. Cleartraine, and I shall leave them to Aunt Mae, who is infinitely more experienced in those subjects than I. I will confine myself to issues of survival and political self interest. If we don't get a definitive handle of those damned things, sooner or later they will become a menace - to us, our interstellar allies, and all the innocent bystanders - that will require absolutely Pyrrhic solutions. I would prefer not to have to destroy a planet in order to save it."

**First the stick, then the carrot...**

Conner Wittman raised his hands like a boxer as the last tallies came in. His district here in Beacon- Port-town, had come through with more than 70 percent of the vote. The Progressive Party ('The Wave of the Future!') looked to have eighteen seats, with five different parties splitting the others. None of them had a coherent plan though, like him.

Wittman was a rarity on Torch. He wasn't an ex slave or the child of one, though he had told several reporters that he was. When he'd left Vaterland four years ago, it had been right before warrants could be served for a lot of different charges that would have had him in jail until even Prolong might not be long enough. That is, of course if the Fuhrer hadn't merely sent him off to one of the reeducation camps, or into the Nacht Und Nebel. It had taken all of his money to buy his new identity, and Torch looked to be perfect.

He could push to become Prime Minister, though if he suggested Tomas Waverly of the Central Party instead, he could become the assistant to the Prime Minister until the time came to change the leadership... He'd studied Reich history very carefully. People forget that Adolf Hitler had been vice chancellor to the ailing Hindenberg, and had replaced him when the old man finally admitted he was too old.

He waved to his supporters, shaking hands with any who came close enough. If you were looking for anything that showed he was evil, you would have seen nothing. He didn't have perfect hair, narrow eyes, an oily complexion, all of the things people used in bad HD dramas to show the bad guys. He was attractive, but could walk through a crowd unnoticed. It was his mind that made him what he was, and it was his destiny to become so much more.

He closed the door of his office, turned and stopped.

"Hello, Conner. Or should I say Michel?" Berry sat behind his desk, looking at the speech he had intended to read when his opponent finally admitted defeat. His eyes narrowed. _If she knew that... curse that Winton Bitch!_ "You know, when WEB commented on what you were intending to do, frankly I wondered how anyone could be so stupid. Tell me, Michel Adolf Wittman, once of Vaterland, have you ever read the history of the Japanese Emperors?" He shook his head.

"A fascinating study. I actually asked WEB about them but he didn't have a great deal about them before the Tokugawa Shogunate. So I asked Queen Elizabeth, and she got records from Beowulf, where a lot of Earth's history was stored during the period right before and after Earth's Last War. While the Imperial line stretches back all the way to the 7th century BCE, starting in the 8th century CE, the Emperors had become nothing but figureheads. All lands; the source of a monarch's personal wealth, were in the hands of his nobles.

"Every time some new thug, either a commoner with money, or a noble of the Samurai class came to power, they would go to the Emperor, and 'beg to be given' the title, whether it was Shogun for a noble, or Supreme Military Dictator for a commoner. By the 16th century CE, they had been reduced to very well dressed beggars. Imperial Court officials routinely had to sell their signatures on important documents just to have enough for their households to eat.

"Yet their people followed these leaders because the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, gave them his imprimatur." She leaned forward. "For that matter, have you studied the present government in Manticore?" At his blank look she grinned.

"An obvious attempt to keep political power after a plague pretty much wiped out the original settlers. They created their aristocracy to keep that power when the new wave of colonists arrived. In fact they had to alter their Constitution several times during the next 50 T years to keep that control. Something we don't need here, regardless of the 'new order' you want to create." She picked up the speech so carefully crafted. "You know, except for not using the words German and Reich, this is almost exactly a knockoff of the acceptance speech given by Adolf Hitler in 1933. And you even named your suggested national police the SA, for Special Action instead of _Sturmabteilung_, Assault or Storm Division in German."

Then she threw the pages onto the desk. "If you decide to give that speech, I want you to consider this. I am not the Son of Heaven. I'm the Bitch from Hell, Michel. I know exactly what you're trying to do in that oh sweetly worded document. So I will cover your points in my own order.

"Do away with the Lords? Not going to happen. While two elected houses worked for the old United States, it had problems. The lower house," she motioned to him, "was always linked to the population, so the 1st Congress was weighted heavily toward the American Northeast from the start, 38 0ut of the 65. By the time of their War Between the States, it had jumped to 190, seven of whom were non-voting. 88 of them were from the Northeast, 65 for the South, but almost all of those seats were vacant, because the South was beginning to secede, so 88 out of 119, with most of the remainder agreeing with the Northeast. They decided, using the 'Fourth Guarantee', that even though they voted sometimes overwhelming to secede, that those people did not have the right to leave unless the government they left also agreed. So that War happened.

"The Senate was supposed to balance this, but again, more Senators from the Northeast than there were from the South. But the Lords," She gave him a smile that made him want to back away. She had watched her husband very carefully. He was of one of the Manpower 'heavy labor' lines; huge and imposing. He had a way of smiling that to the the person he was smiling at said, _I am going to enjoy ripping your fool head off_ that stopped most Sollie businessmen from making stupid threats before they were even uttered. "We only have four so far, and three have either minor or unborn child to take those seats. So the parents of Sam Morgan will take his seat until he reaches his majority, Paul Andretti's widow will take his child's seat, and an adviser will be appointed by the Citizen's House to vote for Felicia. But that adviser will be at _my_ agreement. After all, what government can honestly say they are a better role model than a child's parents?

"And they are for _life_. It gives the government a view beyond petty party politics until there are a lot more of them. That is why the power of the purse will remain in the lower house with the right to amend or veto in the Lords, and a majority needed in both to pass any legislation. Frankly we don't have enough Lords with a long enough time in office to even have most of them understand what we need, and we don't even have enough to fill out the Lords we will need for the Admiralty, which is why Jeremy will still be doing that for the time being. Which means the Prime Minister will be of the lower house for at least a century, and all bills must be passed through both houses with a clear majority before being handed to me.

"Advise and consent granted to the Citizen's House? Give up the right of refusal for my ministers and the right to cast out the lot of you on my own whim? The Constitution my people voted on gives those powers to me in Article Eleven, and there will be a ice skating, outside, with fur coats on the equator here before you get me to agree to change that. Remember, I have the right of veto, and without a three quarter majority, you're not going to override that, even if it's just the annual budget. You'll need the same to get the Citizen's House to back you, and while we both know you're close if we poll them when they are first seated, you will probably lose. But if you try, I will go on the air publicly, and demand a referendum; something no amount of votes can stop or override under Article Two. It will state, 'shall we throw out our queen; chosen by acclamation, because some politician thinks he is smarter?'."

She smiled. "If you get ten percent agreeing, it will be because people weren't paying attention. I was queen for six months before you arrived, before over half of our population arrived, and they stopped _slaughtering_ people because I asked. I don't think they'd even hesitate to string up your lot if I show them exactly how fucked they were if you got your way.

"Judges to be elected?" She snorted. "The worst part of party politics in the old United States was that you either have one party controlling the lion's share of the judges, or the weaker party trying to pass bills to 'rationalize' why they should get equal proportions. That is why judges are and will always be appointed, that appointment passing either the local selections for their judges, or both houses for appellate and Queen's Bench again before I see all of the names for acceptance.

"Replace my ministers now rather than after the original five year period specified in the Constitution for my original ministers? Oh I'll admit there are a few we can do without, but if you even try to touch WEB, Jeremy, Thandi or Ruth. you will run right into a Bitch by the name of Berry Zilwicki. The five of us held this nation together before you arrived!

"I may be some 'silly bitch' from the gutters of Old Chicago as one of your associates said, but I lived through worse than your lot before Helen found me. When I got the chance to get an education, I _used_ it. The Constitution of Torch may look like a knock off of everything from the Magna Carta to the old US Constitution, to the Fundamental Declarations of the Luna Colonies on to the Manticoran one, but Article Two was designed by me!" She laughed. "I checked with lawyers _and_ Constitutional scholars when I wrote it, and the right to resist the government when a citizen believes it is taking away his rights is not only words, it is their _right_ and under law can only be taken away from them by me_ with their informed consent_. I personally have to convince them to agree that what my government doing is right. Not someone I give that right to, but me alone. So no 'Fourth Guarantee' to force them to bow to the Houses with me rubber stamping it.

"Investigating my privy purse because I am so wasteful? Go right ahead. Try going from dirt poor to filthy rich in weeks. I spent more time my first year with momma trying to find how much I could hide away in case it was all some dream. It took me a couple of _years_ before I was willing to spend half of what I did have to spend then. Try a thousand dollars a month compared to three million a year. So except for 30,000 dollars before we made the Shekel the official currency, every cent of the privy purse has been invested in infrastructure, and has been every year. Even a good chunk of my profits from it were also plowed back in to first building then expanding the mining facility orbiting Liberia, so a millennia or more from now when every scrap of land is given away, the Crown will still have an independent income.

"Going over the decrees from myself or my 'cabal'? WEB knows more about how a government is set up than you do, or will ever know. Why do you think we set the base tax at 1% of the proceeds from industry with no income tax to speak of beyond capital gains? So that we could expand it at need, not have to reduce it later, or pork barrel projects the Citizen's House might come up with in the interim.

"You can't even wait a few years then go to the courts once they are fully assembled, to overrule me because again, I can refuse to seat any judge I do not think is competent, and if they start following anyone's party line without good reason, I will order them removed. And the punishment for a violation of their charge is very draconian, so they won't be accepting bribes or perks for about a century, because if there is even a whiff of the possibility, Shin Bet _will_ investigate, and it will be hard to say I don't have the legal right since it is clearly defined in Article Eleven, where it gives the Crown's powers. Getting the Articles I thought were most important passed is why we didn't have a constitution sooner. If you decide to get crossways with me from the start, unless you read the Constitution _very_ carefully, you might, as the Grayson's say, step on your sword if you push it."

She motioned to the scattered sheets of foolscap. "So you can write and give whatever speech you want. But I give you fair warning now. If any of _that_ ends up in it, or comes up within the next, oh twenty T years from any quarter, I will have to assume you are being as stupid as you think I am, and you will have me as a mortal enemy. You cannot have yourself or Waverly chosen as Prime Minster and force me to accept, even with an override of my veto, because every cabinet minister serves at my pleasure; I can refuse if I don't trust them, and prorogue the entire Citizen's House if I must, because frankly, the only people I hate more than you right now are all working for Manpower."

She walked around the desk, waiting until he moved away from the door. "Believe it or not, Conner, considering who I have as a 'cabal', this was the _easy_ way to get you to behave. Hugh wanted to come over and see how many bones he could break before you died and stuff your carcass into an eight liter bucket to deliver to the House as a none to gentle warning. Even his way is easy compared to what I can do if you force the issue. You really don't want to see the hard way." She opened the door, and Yanna stood there grinning. "Oh, and congratulations on your victory. I am sure we'll butt heads occasionally from here on, but any intelligent politician, or queen, expects that. Good evening."

She stalked away from the jubilant celebration, her three Amazon 'travel team' forming around her. They had gone barely ten paces when Yanna gave a braying laugh. "The hard way? Smashing him small enough to fit in a bucket isn't the hard way?" Yanna asked.

"Oh much less strict, Yanna." Berry waved it off. "Jeremy added the stricture that I have the right to banish one person a year in Article Nine, and there is no appeal. He might have thought it was a joke, but when I get mad it's one hell of an excellent weapon. If I banished him, we could let Vaterland know where he goes from here; They are still very interested in getting their hands on him and are very vindictive. But if he really pisses me off enough, I make him one of the Lords."

"And this is bad, why?" Yanna asked.

"First because if you are nominated, which only I or the House of Citizens can do, you are legally enjoined from voting or lobbying regarding it, on either side. So he can't try to convince the other ministers to block it. More importantly, anyone elevated to the Lords as the first of their house is enjoined by the Constitution from holding any other office under Article Seven unless called by me to serve." Berry said. "WEB and I believe that a nobleman must first become fully conversant with their new demesnes and people before their _heirs_ try for further office. Last, unlike Elizabeth's House of Lords, they cannot refuse to seat him without a super-majority." She gave a smile a treecat would have loved. "Like I told him, you have to read very carefully to see that Croc before it bites your balls off."

**Preparations just in case**

Berry walked back into her kitchen, and Hugh immediately hugged her. The others had noticed the tightly bound fury of the girl, but only Hugh could have done that to sooth her gentle temperament.

"The Admiral will be here to see you, in a few minutes, Berry." Jeremy said softly.

WEB coughed delicately. "You did place the picador darts as I suggested?"

"Yes, WEB. Why tomorrow I fully intend to seal my own shoes without asking Hugh for help."

"You wear shoes?" Hugh asked lighty. She slapped the tree trunk arms of her husband playfully. "God, I found meeting him in person made me loathe him even more." She looked to Ruth. "All your facts are solid, Ruth?"

"Having every new immigrant checked for genetic diseases is a godsend in this situation. DNA doesn't lie, Berry. You know I would not have brought the data to you and said it was true unless I was sure." Ruth shrugged. "I tell my people to look for the clues, then make determinations, then tell me what they think it means, and be ready for me to shoot those assumptions full of holes. If they are right and I am wrong, I will admit it later. That's why our search for the 9th spider-wasp source is still up in the air. Most of the records were destroyed back before the discovery of the Victim Islands. But Helena is looking into other possible clues."

"Where? If I were creating some bioweapon from hell, I'd not only destroy the records, I'd destroy the whole bloody computer system they were on just to make sure!" Thandi said.

Ruth smiled. "If they did it your way, Thandi, you'd be right. But regardless of whatever plots Mesa has been creating, Manpower is a _business_, and a business creates almost as much paperwork as any government. You have to explain where every cent goes, and expect that the government, or corporate headquarters is going to want to audit those books occasionally." She set down her ale glass, and held up her closed fist.

Index finger. "First you have marketing. They were selling spider-wasp honey for two T years, three months and fourteen days." She looked around the table. "Did I tell you Ms Stavrakas is a bit anal retentive?" They chuckled appreciatively. "So during that time they had to have shipping manifests, and we found them."

"Material Support." She put up her middle finger. "Though slaves aren't paid, you have to replace them when they get used up," She grimaced at the euphemism, but no one complained. "and since they thought of the slaves as replacement parts, their Material Support division handled ordering more. She ran an analysis of replacements ordered for losses of workers compared by facilities, and there wasn't a major spike in any of them before processing the honey began or during the actual marketing, and Helena told me the number of slaves lost jumped by only two or three dead during that period; and those were over in Research eleven, North up the coast 200 kilometers from Lumiere. Not two or three percent, but two or three _bodies_. Not to mention the wrong ocean, since the Islands are in the other ocean and south of us.

"But every time they opened a new facility before, there were major spikes when they started, followed by smaller numbers after the defensive systems were put in place. For example, the monthly loss of slaves for Beacon when it was still Research 19 dropped 15% when they started using Tank armor boots, and another 22% when they began arming the slaves with those boar spears of theirs. There were increases when they began harvesting the Godcrocs and Sea Dragonss for meat and leather; 21% for the crocs, 19% for the Sea Dragons; though adding the 20mm rifles used by the overseers reduced that to 11% for Croc harvesting, and adding the autoguns reduced it 8% for Sea Dragons.

"Also, Material Support listed those losses as part of Research Facility _11B_ initially. But except for that original mention there is no other. It's like..." she paused. "Like the Union in the War Between the States allowing the representatives who remained from Virginia to vote for the entire state rather than creating the State of West Virginia in 1863CE."

Ring Finger. "Repair and Maintenance section reported an additional two shuttle missions per month during that time only, all headed from Research 11 to an undisclosed planetary location, then to a production facility in orbit, and transport from that facility to the space station. Then nothing. Then Material Support ordered the construction of a _new_ honey production facility at the same orbital location, without explaining where the original facility went. It wasn't repaired, it was replaced, with no mention of what happened to the original. Someone had to account for what happened to the original station and why. But there is no record in our computers here."

Little finger. "And there is personnel. Right before those beach party shots were made, a team of genetic engineers led by a man named Sol Palaster arrived; nothing beyond a name, vague description and one pic taken when he arrived. No mention of a department except that he and his team traveled on a Manpower transport as passengers. They spoke with the main company representative, and he authorized a shuttle and crew assigned to them. But eight months before the locals began processing honey again, Palaster left. The shuttle crew and the remaining members of the genetics team were listed as dead. But where they were located, how they died, or what they were working on was not.

"We can't ask the man who authorized that deployment; the Main Rep and his family tried to escape in a shuttle when the Liberation began. One of the locals on Dejima activated the anti Dragon guns in air defense mode and shot them up on takeoff. The ship crashed out near the sonic fence that keeps the Tutzelwurms away. Three of the four are known dead in wurm attacks from the DNA found where the shuttle crashed. The last is still missing and presumed dead."

"And we can't very well pick up Palaster. I assume he went home to Mesa?" Thandi asked.

Ruth snickered. "Remember the old saying about 'assume'. No, he bought a ticket on a tramp freighter headed for Erewhon. The man disappeared over five _years_ ago. He could have been taking vacation time and just decided to hit Wages of Sin before going home. He could have decided to take a slow boat the long way and gone through to Manticore, then to Beowulf and home. He was of no interest to us before, so unless we have data that identifies him on Mesa or inside the League in our more recent downloads, we have no clue where he is on Mesa. And if he was running like hell for whatever reason, he can be anywhere in human space by now assuming he is still alive." She put up her thumb.

"Finally there's the accounting department. You have eleven of their own dead, the scientists and the flight crew, yet there were no explanations as to where they died or how; no mention of where the shuttle went down. In fact we have the paper trail where the local head of accounting sent an angry message to Mesa itself, and was told by the Board of Directors to shut up, and just list them as dead, and declare the shuttle a loss." She looked around the table. "So at present, we're back to square one."

Inge stuck her head in. "Admiral Brown to see you, Berry."

Like Jeremy, Admiral John Brown was on the Entertainment Line. He was a jolly faced man who was a little overweight. In fact in the right costume with a fake beard (His line was unable to grow one), he would have been the epitome of a pint sized Santa Claus. Unlike Jeremy however, his jolly visage was a mask. If you looked in his eyes, you would see the cold blooded warrior he had trained to be. If he had been slightly more politically correct, he would have been on the short list for Commodore when the High Ridge government took over. But his outspoken reaction when that government took over had put him on the beach.

When Torch had been liberated, he had immigrated, taken the Oath, and become the first Admiral of the newly forming navy. He had constantly refused higher rank. As commander of less than a squadron of Frigates, he had assumed the rank of Rear Admiral, and when the Mayan Sector gave them the cruisers and destroyers that used to belong to the People's Navy in Exile, he had stayed a rear admiral; that is what the senior officer of such a tack group would have been, and that was good enough for him.

When Grayson at the behest of Steadholder Harrington had donated the cruisers and battlecruisers of her Elysian Navy, he had finally accepted Vice Admiral, and again when Queen Elizabeth gave Berry the two squadrons of Super Dreadnoughts, he finally accepted the rank of Admiral. No one would have said for a moment that he was giving himself a rank he didn't deserve. Not to his face.

"Your Majesty." He looked at the others, then back to his queen.

Berry stood, walked around the table and stood before him. "Hand." He held it out and she swatted it. "I won't take it from any of my people, I won't take it from you, John. Now that I have chastised you, sit down. We have something to talk about. Something to drink? Coffee, tea, cocoa?"

"If it's all the same to you, yo- Berry. I'd rather splice the mainbrace with a double shot of rum."

"What the hell is a mainbrace anyway?" She asked. Hugh had gotten up, and poured the requested drink.

"Back in sailing days, it was the primary support line for the mainmast. Splicing one, usually done in the heat of battle, was one of the most dangerous evolutions aboard ship since you had to run a line from the rails to the block, then from the block to the mast, under fire." He took the tumbler, drained it in a single draught, setting the glass down. "You sent for me?"

"We have a possible problem, and unfortunately we need a point man to send into fire."

Wittman." He commented. She nodded. "There were feelers from that Progressive Party of his since the Constitutional Conference ended." He snorted. "Let's just say if we wanted a military dictatorship, they would have been happy to let us have one; until the Night of the Long Knives." He looked at the blank looks, (Of course Ruth understood). "Historical reference." He looked to Berry. "Let's just say, their unspoken attitude was, 'if you're not for us, you're against us'."

"All right then, question; is there someone who could replace you they would consider politically reliable?"

"Captain Gunter would have appeared to be acceptable to them. Old school Andermani, hates Manticore's guts and hasn't really changed since he came here. But he's a dyed in the wool monarchist. Thinks democracy or autocracy is stupid. He'd have done just long enough for them to purge the navy before having an accident. But he came to me when they made their offer."

"Then this might be easier than we thought. We expect him and his associates to start pushing their own agenda, and while they are seated we can do nothing unless I am willing to throw the first seated House into the street. There are maybe fifteen or twenty of them who might have a chance to grow into their new roles, and I am not going to take the chance that they will merely get voted back in." Berry told him.

"Ruth knows and the others here agree, that the two places he might be able to find to attack successfully is the Navy, and in the intelligence field. Both have too many operatives or personnel that are loaners."

"That would be correct. Something like 45% of my own people are loaners from six different polities, even during the war that just ended we didn't kick either side out. All have done sterling service too."

"And thanks to the need for analysts, mine runs almost 85% of loaned personnel." Ruth admitted.

"And either of those can be blown out of proportion. How short are you on manning all of our ships, Admiral?"

"Over a hundred twenty thousand people. We stripped everything but the LAC crews training here and the ships we sent to Good Times station for that mission. If there had been a serious force there, we would have been in trouble. We would not have been well enough trained to face them. If they had struck here while we were gone, they would have had a chance of destroying our home."

"You told me then what we risked, and I thought for the prize, it was worth the risk, Admiral. Do not take all of that blame from me."

He shook his head. "It was a bold stroke, I agreed, and we succeeded. But like any such trick, it would work only once." He looked up. "That is what they will use. A daring stroke that risked everything on the one throw of the dice. A brave plan that was obviously my own scheme for glory."

Berry wanted to cry. It had been her idea, her 'cabal' had come up with it, and while he had not led the attack, this man had planned it. "I swear I will not let them crucify you, John. I will keep you in my service, whatever it takes."


End file.
